At The Artisan Bakery, we strive to reduce waste wherever possible. Day to day, we make everything to order, and therefore have very little food waste. When Covid hit and the nation shut down, we had an excess of bread, pastries and a lot of hot cross buns, so rather than throw it all away, we delivered it to our local hospital, for staff and patients alike.
We have always been aware of our plastic usage, and our desire for sustainability is one of our core values. As part of our drive to reduce our carbon footprint we embarked on the development of a range of packaging, that is both biodegradable and home compostable. We cannot claim to be carbon neutral – like all bakeries, we use electricity for our mixers and ovens – but we constantly search for better and more efficient ways to run our bakery and deliver our goods.
At home, my partner and I are in the midst of renovating an 1850‘s house in Grantchester where we apply the same principles. We re-use and refurbish everything we can, like the wood we used for our kitchen work surface. It’s hewn from a storm fallen three hundred year old beech tree sourced locally at Wimpole Hall, shaped by hand in my workshop.
We all need to do our bit to help, which brings me onto Christmas: Today, we launch our Christmas lines, bite sized and full sized mince pies and our amazing Nutty Slice, which is a bite of the best Christmas cake you’ve ever tasted. We make our own mincemeat, whilst the pastry and marzipan toppings are all rolled by hand here at the bakery, using flour from Wessex Mills, which is less than 60 miles away from our bakery.
You can try them at many of our stockists in and around London, or supplied fresh in London via Amazon Fresh, or, if you live outside London, you can get our family bakery box, that comes with a free pack of mince pies, packed in our biodegradable packaging.
Enjoy, and have a happy and peaceful Christmas.
Andy Murray
Managing Director, The Artisan Bakery