What is the truth behind "freshly baked" supermarket bread?

We are a nation of bread lovers with 11 million loaves of bread bought everyday in the UK. Many of those will be labelled as 'fresh' from the supermarket bakery, but you might be left feeling a little stale to realise in fact there's nothing fresh about them. Our cook Briony May Williams has been to investigate how supermarkets are shipping in bread from across the country (and in some cases, the world) and heating them up under the guise of fresh baking. Plus, she'll show how labels can be so mis-leading that the ONLY way to work out where your loaf is really from is to speak to the staff.

To watch this with subtitles, go to BBC iPlayer and search for Morning Live 04/07/24.

We reached out to the supermarkets featured in this film. Morrisons told us that its 1300 bakers make most of the stores’ bread from scratch, but it also works with bakeries to produce specialist loaves.

It has instructed stores to remove incorrect signage, which it apologises for. It says it provides over 40% of the bakery apprenticeships in the UK.

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said its bakery recipes offer customers good value, fresh products. It confirmed that bread in its 'Taste the Difference' range is labelled ‘freshly baked’ because when loaves arrive in store, they are not the finished product – being finally baked in in-store ovens.

Tesco told us it freshly bakes bread in hundreds of its stores, but where it doesn’t have the space to bake from scratch, its suppliers prepare dough which is then baked in store. It says the signage is specific to each individual store, and has been agreed with its Trading Standards Primary Authority.

Lidl said its store signage does not say bakery produce is freshly baked from scratch. It explained that bakery items arrive at its stores unbaked, or part baked, and in-store bakeries are used to finish baking items. Lidl says it has robust processes in place to ensure all of its marketing is clear and accurate, allowing customers to make informed decisions, and its primary authority has confirmed it has no concerns with customers being misled.

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