How UK supermarkets’ ‘fresh’ bread is made and frozen in France and Ireland
Bread is often partially cooked hundreds of miles away before being shipped to stores and finished off in 'loaf tanning salons'
SUPERMARKET "fresh" bread is often made hundreds of miles away in France or Ireland, an investigation reveals.
Grocery firms - including Tesco, Aldi, Waitrose and Co-op - claim that their bread is "freshly baked" but this is not the case, according to the The Real Bread Campaign.
In fact, bread on supermarket shelves is often made off-site and frozen in factories, before being cooked in "loaf tanning salons" in-store to give the appearance of being freshly baked.
It follows the controversy last week that Pret a Manger's "fresh" baguettes are up to a year old after being frozen in a factory in France and shipped to the UK.
The Real Bread Campaign also claims that supermarkets mislead shoppers with unclear labels and that loaves are designed to look like those made by artisan bakers.
For example, signs in Tesco Express stores claim bread is "straight from the oven" and "expertly baked throughout the day", but its website reveals that some bread comes from as far as Ireland and France.
While loaves sold in Waitrose also come across the channel from France before being finished off in store and some of The Co-op's “Truly Irresistible” range of bread is partially cooked in Dublin, Ireland before being shipped to the UK.
These part-baked loaves often have a shorter shelf-life and could contain preservatives to help keep the bread fresher for longer.
Supermarket Aldi's bloomers are packed in brown paper bags and it claims they are "baked with pride using traditional handcrafted measures".
But some of the bread is made in a Loughborough based factory with a £20million turnover, producing a million loaves a week.
In fact, bakery products for the chain are prepared at different locations across the UK, not in-store.
Asda, Lidl, Morrisons and Sainbury's all claim that bread is freshly baked in-store, despite some stores not cooking them from scratch.
Lidl proudly claims on its website "fresh bread baked daily" and "baked for you throughout the day".
While signs in Sainsbury's and Asda also claim a similar thing.
Some supermarkets do note on labels that bread has been previously frozen, although this is not always clear.
The Real Bread campaign claims it made a "strenuous" effort to contact every supermarket mentioned.
Its researchers visited stores, looked at in-store labelling as well examining websites and trade press coverage but it was unable to find out exact details of how many in-store bakeries actually bake bread from scratch in any supermarket chain.
It is not known how old pre-cooked bread is and the Real Bread Campaign did not get a response from supermarkets on this.
Chris Young from the Read Bread Campaign said: "In the end, we spent months trying to get information and answers, which is more than your average, busy shopper has to spare, and still can’t tell you much for sure about many of the loaves we looked at.
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"We see it as the not so great British fake off and urge the Government to introduce what we call an Honest Crust Act of better loaf labelling and marketing laws to protect shoppers for being left in the dark or even misled."
The loaves from Tesco which appear to come from Ireland and France are currently not on sale via its website.
Co-Op said that it has hundreds of bakery line and nine of which are made in Ireland.
A spokesperson for Co-op said: "Each day all our stores get a delivery of freshly baked British sandwiches while our range of pre-baked bread is also made in Britain and delivered fresh to stores. "We then part bake some products in-store, including baguettes, croissants and some sourdough breads.
";Around 1,400 of our stores also sell locally baked breads from small suppliers."
A spokesperson from Morrisons said: "Most of our bread is freshly baked in our stores every day."
The Sun has contacted Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose for a comment.
The Sun also contacted Aldi and Lidl but they did not wish to comment.
In 2010, Tesco was told off by the Advertising Standards Association for claiming in a newspaper advert that "every single loaf" of "fresh bread, baked from scratch in our in-store bakery... is genuinely British".
The ASA revealed that this was untrue and that the majority of bread had been booked days or weeks before in a factory miles away.
Last year, it emerged that sandwiches and salads eaten by hungry Brits contain eggs up to a month old.
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