We’re an independent social enterprise and worker co-op, specialising in slowly fermented, hand-crafted bread.
Leeds Bread Co-op was established in the summer of 2012 by 3 founder members, who were motivated to make great quality, delicious bread made with healthy, well sourced ingredients available to the people of Leeds, whilst creating an ethical and enjoyable workplace that provided good livelihoods to the workers.
With the help of a supportive community and loyal customers, we have slowly grown over the last few years – but have held true to the original aims of the co-op and to our co-operative values.
We, along with all our fellow co-operatives around the world, are based on the co-operative values of democracy, self-help, self-responsibility, equality, equity and solidarity. We aim for a non-hierarchical workplace where empowerment of staff, care of the community and collective self-reliance are at the core of how we function.
All of our products and our work is underpinned by the co-operative values and by our own Principles:
- Quality & Integrity
- Community
- Sustainability
- Good Workplace
- Co-operation
To can download a PDF to read more about our Principles here.
Our aims as an enterprise are to:
To increase consumption, availability and knowledge of real bread by
- Producing real bread in a socially and environmentally responsible way.
- Making our bread available to a wide range of people.
- Creating a ‘food hub’ where a range of small food businesses can realise their own visions while collaborating and supporting each other.
- Offering food-based workshops and classes which empower people to develop their cooking and baking skills and improve their health.
To provide an ethical and enjoyable livelihood and workplace to our employees by
- Paying a living wage as an minimum.
- Creating maximum-hour working weeks for all employees and taking on new staff where the maximum limit is reached.
- Encouraging each member to have creative input so everyone has an intellectual stake in the business.
- Having a flat wage structure.
- Reaching decisions by consensus instead of majority vote.
To tread lightly on the environment by
- Using ethically sourced and where possible local ingredients.
- Minimising packaging and using recycled packaging.
- Using energy from renewables as much as possible.
