Buyer's guide to bread

This is a free buyer's guide from Ethical Consumer, the UK's leading alternative consumer organisation. We research the social and environmental records of companies.

More detailed versions of this guide are available. See the links at the bottom of the page.

Best Buys as of May/June 2006

As our ratings are constantly updated, it is possible that company ratings on the ethiscore website may have changed since this report was written.

Organic bread from Paul's, Authentic Bread, Saker, Village Bakery and Doves Farm are all Best Buys.
Of the mainstream brands, Warburton's organic bread comes out best.

Brand	Rating
Paul's bread [A, O]	17
Authentic Bread Co bread [O]	16
Doves Farm organic bread [O]	15.5
Saker bread [O]	15
Village Bakery bread [O]	14
Warburtons organic bread [O]	13.5
Bell's of Lazonby bread	13
Warburtons bread	12.5
Weight Watchers' bread	12.5
Hovis organic bread [O]	6.5
Hovis bread	5.5
Mothers Pride bread	5.5
Nimble bread	5.5
Allinson bread	2
Burgen bread	2
Kingsmill bread	2
Sunblest bread	2

The higher the rating the more ethical the brand. This whole scorecard was last updated from our database on 14 October 2009 but some individual company ratings may have changed since then. Up to the minute information can be seen by subscribers using Ethiscore.
Learn more about our ratings.

Bread - mini report

Best Buys for bread are organic loaves, the more locally produced the better. But most of the bread sold in the UK is 'sliced and wrapped', and manufactured by a couple of huge companies. Well-known brands like Hovis and Kingsmill are made by RHM and Associated British Foods (ABF) respectively.

Sorry. No downloadable research report available for this product.