19th June 2009 – Tom starts www.loafonline.co.uk as a food blog

13th August  2009 - A board of directors is formed, sworn in, and the company is officially registered with Companies House as a social enterprise (company limited by guarantee)

16th October 2009 – Tom is featured in The Birmingham Post in an excellent feature by Richard McComb. This coverage kicks off a whole load more press coverage in the coming year.

14th November 2009 – Tom attends ‘The Rise of Real Bread’ conference in Oxford, has one too many beers with Dan and Johanna McTiernan from the Handmade Bakery, and plots his exit from the NHS on the train home.

18th November 2009 – Loaf Cookery School launches with the first Handmade Pasta course.

21st November 2009 – Tom runs the first Bread: Back to basics course, soon to become the most popular course at the cookery school.

22nd January 2010 – Tom starts the Community Supported Bakery supplying sourdough bread to 10 subscribers and Capeling & Co.

3rd February 2010 – Loaf provide bread for the Soil Association’s annual conference. Tom gets to meet his bread hero Andrew Whitley, who approves of the bread – phew!

May 2010 – Tom appears in the Virgin Trains onboard magazine and cookery school bookings go through the roof!

3rd July 201o – Loaf launch the third strand of their business – the mobile wood-fired pizza oven at the CoCoMAD festival in Cotteridge park – Tom and team make 180 sourdough pizza’s in six and a half hours.

27th July 2010 – Loaf are involved in launching Stirchley Community Market, a one-of-a-kind local food and crafts market in Birmingham. 36 loaves of bread sell out in 30 mins.

4th August 2010 – Tom appears in the Guardian Society as part of a discussion on the inaugural Stirchley Market and the role of local food in community building.

August 2010 – Tom’s bread courses are so popular that they sell out for the rest of 2010.

Since January 2010 Tom has made approximately 1500 loaves of artisan bread for the community bakery. These were all hand kneaded and baked at home.

Since November 2009, 153 people have attended courses at Loaf Cookery School.

Phew, what a year, thanks to everyone for helping us make it work this year, we couldn’t have done it without all our loyal bread buyers, course students, and of course, Richard Mccomb. A massive thank you as well to my amazing wife Jane Baker of Greensnapper Photography for being so supportive and for allowing her home to be turned into Loaf HQ. Here’s to a second successful year!

“Learn from the experts how to grow your own veg, with top tips on looking after your kitchen garden. Watch cooking demonstrations, take part in vegetable garden master classes and meet local food and drink producers. There will be tasting sessions running throughout the day and fruit, veg, cheese, bakery and deli stalls selling treats to take home.”

To find out more about Winterbourne Gardens, visit www.winterbourne.org.uk. Loaf will be serving wood-fired sourdough pizza’s from about 11.30 onwards – should be a great day.

Last night we had the pleasure of hosting a live broadcast by BBC WM during their Drive Time show with Paul Franks. Franksy sent roving reporter Jennie Jones down to Loaf HQ (i.e. Tom’s gaf), to see what Tom’s getting up to, to bake some Ciabatta’s, and pop open some elderflower champagne. Tom featured on the show at 6.15pm and again at 6.45 pm – you can listen again in the next 6 days if you visit the Paul Franks Show on the BBC iPlayer – skip to 2:16 and then 2:44.

Loaf had the privilege in helping launch and take part in Birmingham’s newest market last week at Stirchley Community Market. The market was a huge success with hundreds of people coming down to check out what was happening and support the fantastic stall holders that were there. Loaf took down 36 loaves of bread which sold out in the first half an hour, but fortunately we were also making wood-fired pizza’s which we sold out of a bit nearer to the end (though I promise we’ll make more next time!!). The place was teeming with journalists too, and the market has had lots of coverage this week, with the Birmingham Press featuring us last Friday, the Birmingham Post today, and the Birmingham Mail tomorrow. Amazingly the first market also made the national newspapers, with freelance journalist Chris Arnot writing a feature in Wednesday 4th August’s Guardian Society. You can read the full article by clicking here. There’ll be more to come hopefully, with a potential feature on BBC WM early next week – we’ll keep you posted!

enjoy!

Photo by Jane Baker / greensnapperphotography.com

Well, I had the honour today of making the winners list for the inaugural MAD’s (McComb Awards for Dining) brummie food awards in the Birmingham Post. Amazingly, I shared a page with such brummie foodie greats as Glynn Purnell, Luke Tipping, and Richard Turner. Not only that, but I seemingly had a whole category named after me, winning the ‘best outdoor-cooked eggs and muffin’ category. You can see the whole article by clicking here or see below for the full text of the mention:

Tom Baker, Cotteridge

Food evangelist, founder member of Birmingham-based LOAF social enterprise and self-taught cook, Tom Baker combines a democratic, culinary zeal with down-to-earth rustic cooking. Yes, like his surname, he is a baker – and an outstanding one at that. One of my food highlights was sharing freshly cooked muffins with the man, topped with fried eggs, all cooked in his adobe-style wood-fired earth oven. Dining alfresco in Cotteridge has never been so good.

Well that just about tops off a fantastic 2009 for me and I hope I can retain the tile in 2010! Tom.