As well as Superloaf, Modern Baker also produces a six-strong artisanal range which is available in Ocado, Whole Foods Market, Planet Organic, Selfridges and independent retailers. The range includes organic sourdough loaves Super Spelt and Seedy Seedy, as well as activated charcoal loaf Social Sourdough, and Double Chocolate & Hazelnut Sourdough Biscuits. Future potential Sharp’s researchers confirmed what nutritionists have long known, that immunity is supported not through a single ingredient, but through the interaction of a range of different ingredients in a healthy diet. “Building a stronger immune system isn’t about one-off miracle foods, it’s about eating the right foods every day: hence our focus on the UK’s staple food,” says Professor Jeff Pearson, who led the team at Newcastle. Of the ~1B loaves of bread produced globally every day, over 70% constitute an Ultra-Processed Food, a major contributor to the global epidemic of diet-related chronic illness, an ongoing crisis that’s crippling global healthcare systems to the tune of trillions, while blighting lives and communities. There is another way. Following its annual Sourdough September campaign, the Real Bread Campaign noted a rise in claims within the sourdough community. Sharp felt the best way to fully recover was to eat unrefined, plant-based foods. After making sourdoughs that friends seemed to love, she set up (with Lindsay Stark, a graduate of the School of Artisan Food in Nottingham) a healthy bakery-café in Oxford producing long-fermented sourdough breads from unrefined stone-ground grains.

Category winners were then pitted against each other as the judges decided on the entry to be named Britain’s Best Loaf (see the full list of category winners below). Vegetables are a type of prebiotic, a group of fibre-containing foods that “fertilise” existing bacteria and encourage microbe development. Other prebiotics include wholegrain foods, such as brown bread, rice, pasta, beans and pulses. Dubbed “the healthiest loaf ever made” and geared towards supporting immune health, the NPD went on to win the Innovation category at Britain’s Best Loaf just a few months later. Aiming to reframe UPFs as positive nutrition, Modern Baker’s research has been focused on replicating the nutrient profile found in a fruit, veg and whole grain diet from natural plant sources, along with developing the processes required to integrate it into processed foods.Also known as linseed, this has been shown to regulate blood sugar, which is closely linked to immunity. Its readily fermentable qualities are appreciated by our gut microbes. The bread cost “many millions of pounds” to create, with funding from five Innovate UK grants and private investors. It was developed in partnership with several scientific organisations, including Newcastle University’s Biosciences Institute, food technology giant Camden BRI and the Oxford Brookes Centre for Nutrition & Health. “No one single company can do this on its own,” said Campbell. “You need an ecosystem of partners.”

The most oft-seen claims include being more nutritious: higher in fibre and a good source of pre- and probiotics; better digestibility: lower in gluten, glycaemic index (GI) and FODMAPs; and, of course, is additive and yeast-free. The Netherlands-based Innova database named “In Tune with Immune” one of its Top Ten Trends for 2021, and a survey by Innova last year found that six out of 10 consumers globally were looking for foods and drinks that would support their immune systems. These foods include bread. At the end of 2022 Silicon Valley started to break down the Food Tech investment asset class into its component parts. ‘Food-as-med’ was one of them, recognising the commercial potency in science and tech based solutions aimed at solving the chronic metabolic health crisis facing society.” Superloaf has shown that carb-based UPFs can be re-engineered ‘for the common good’ by combining the economic and format advantages of being produced at scale with Modern’s Baker’s Alt-Nutrition concept, principally from prebiotic plant fibres, bioactive plant compounds and targeted fermentation. Superloaf is the first ‘alt-carb’ staple food from food-as-medicine startup Oxford Food Tech, formed with a mission to make a positive impact on one billion diets by 2028.In light of the current pandemic, Sharp believes the need for immune-supporting staples that are accessible to all has never been greater. “Covid has been a wake-up call that immunity against disease, through what we eat, is critical,” she says. “Good diet is as necessary to good health as good hospitals.” Ten years ago, Real Bread Campaign partnered with Food for Life to award points to caterers serving Real Bread (made inhouse or bought in) towards their Food For Life Served Here Award and Food for Life Schools Awards. Sharp and cofounder Leo Campbell then founded Modern Baker, which produces Superloaf, and later, Oxford Food Tech for its science and IP. Eating probiotics, such as live yogurt, unpasteurised artisan cheese and fermented foods, also encourages the growth of microbes. But it hasn’t been proven that they reach the gut. The advice in Spector’s book, Spoon-Fed, is to limit ultra-processed foods, sugars, sweeteners and preservatives, as they have been found to “reduce the diversity of bacteria” in your gut. UPFs have exploded on the market in recent years with unhealthy items said to now represent nearly 60% of the UK’s calorie intake, Modern Baker noted. They are increasingly linked to the chronic nutrition problem across the globe, something Modern Baker is keen to reframe with its health-positive formulations.