Did you celebrate Pancake Day yesterday? 

Not so long ago Shrove Tuesday had a real Norfolk feel to it, because the run-up to the big day was regularly punctuated with TV adverts for Jif Lemon Juice (‘Don’t forget the pancakes on Jif Lemon Day’), a product which was part of the cornucopia of food and drink produced at Colman’s Norwich factory – a food powerhouse which is sadly long departed from our city.

Whilst Tuesday may have been the day when the nation whipped up the batter and started tossing, this week also marks an important international food campaign which is just as relevant to all of us here in Norfolk.

This is Real Bread Week, a campaign created and run by the Real Bread Campaign, an organisation which is trying to wean us off industrial loaves and encourage us to either source our bread from proper, local bakers, or make it ourselves.

The slow rise of artisan bakers in recent years has been welcome, but we are still a very long way behind other countries when it comes to respecting what is arguably the most basic foodstuff of them all.

It is not a coincidence that it was here in Britain that the truly awful Chorleywood method of making bread was invented – an industrial shortcut which was all about cost-cutting, and has resulted in most of the bread that we eat in this country ranking among the worst in the world.

This technique was developed in 1961 by the British Baking Industries Research Association based at Chorleywood in Hertfordshire, and it is now used to make 80% of the United Kingdom's bread.  The process allows the use of lower protein wheats, and critically it also drastically shortens the production time – it takes just three and a half hours from flour to packaged loaf.

That’s great news for the bread companies, but because the dough doesn’t have time to ferment properly, the glutens don’t develop either. 

The Chorleywood process is arguably the biggest reason for the explosion in gluten intolerance in this country – you just don’t see it in places where the majority of bread is made properly by the traditional method.

This industrialisation of basic foods simply hasn’t happened in many of our European neighbours. 

You don’t have to seek out an ‘artisan’ baker in France, for example; pretty much every single boulangerie offers properly-baked bread, made without the ‘benefits’ of chemical additives, preservatives and rising agents. 

As a result of this, the humble baguette has a UNESCO Cultural Heritage designation – something which the British sliced white loaf will never achieve.

In recent years, we have started to see a kickback against poor quality bread in this country. 

Locally, bakers such as Bread Source and Two Magpies are flying the flag for quality, real bread, and their businesses are thriving. 

Sadly, not every artisan baker can match the excellent customer service of these two; my local baker bakes fabulous loaves, but only sells them three days a week, and bakes so few that you will often turn up to their shop to find the shelves empty – leaving customers no choice but to trudge to the local supermarket for a loaf of tasteless Chorleywood pap.

Small, locally-owned independent bakeries create skilled jobs in the local community, and the money you spend with such businesses tends to stay in the local economy. 

So in this Real Bread Week, let’s all try and support our local bakers and enjoy the taste of properly-made, non-industrial bread.

But for this to happen, the bakeries themselves need to up their game.  Too many (although not all) offer inconsistent availability, inconvenient distribution, and an attitude which seems to be that the customer is lucky to score a loaf from them, rather than the bakery being lucky to have the customers.

And one final plea: surely it is not beyond our talented local bakers to come up with a convincing baguette. 

All you seem to be able to find are sausage-shaped sourdough loaves, which is not the same thing at all.  If anyone knows of a baker who is offering a proper baguette, please let me know – and then Real Bread Week will have been a triumph.