Aidan Monks, co-owner of Lovingly Artisan Bakery, based in Kendal and Manchester is now one of 12 new Real Bread Campaign Ambassadors.
The Real Bread Campaign is run by UK-based charity Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming. Their mission is to find and share ways to make bread better for us, better for our communities and better for the planet, working towards a future in which everyone has the chance to choose Real Bread.
In April 2021, The Real Bread Campaign publicly announced an open-application process, to select a new batch of ambassadors, which ran until the end of May. The team then spent a considerable amount of time cogitating and digesting to narrow the 80 applicants down to the final 12 successful applicants.
To be in with a chance of making it to the final 12, the applicants had to demonstrate each of the following key considerations: Passion, communication, expertise, skills, knowledge and diversity and representation.
Real Bread Campaign ambassadors are unpaid volunteers who are visible and vocal representatives of the Campaign’s work and who are able to wave the flag harder and higher to help: promote Real Bread and neighbourhood bakeries, inspire people to make Real Bread at home, promote the Campaign’s views and activities and encourage people to join the Campaign.
All of which means that the new ambassadors won’t have time to sit on their laurels. Indeed they’re already being put to work straight away to help promote the Real Bread Campaign’s new ‘Knead to Know…more’ crowd funding campaign. A campaign which is designed to help publish an updated and expanded 10th anniversary edition of their micro-bakery handbook and support more community real bread bakers at the same time.
Aidan Monks commented: ‘’I’m honoured to have been selected as a Real Bread Campaign ambassador alongside my colleagues. I’m sure the conversations I’ll be having in the coming weeks, months and years, will certainly broaden my bread horizons. Not only that, being an ambassador will provide me with an even bigger platform to share my passion for Real Bread far and wide, with as many people as possible, and hopefully enable me to share a little learning and knowledge along the way. So, whether you’re interested in local food, the provenance of what you eat, honest labelling, or just simply tasty bread, I’d encourage you to get involved and become a Campaign supporter and share our passion for Real Bread.’’
