Is It For Real?

When is Sourdough not Sourdough?

About ten years ago New Norcia Bakeries started a campaign to have use of the word sourdough limited to genuine, authentic sourdough. Unfortunately, we failed in our quest with some minion in the Australian Competitive and Consumer Commission (ACCC) ruling that the consumer would know the difference between real sourdough and fake sourdough. Really!!??

Genuine sourdough has been made for at least 5000 years and contains just three ingredients; flour, salt and water with the sourdough culture being made up of naturally fermenting flour and water. The making of genuine sourdough requires skill and patience, two things greatly lacking in non-artisan bakeries.

Our campaign came to mind the other day when I stopped to look at a loaf of Coles Our Finest Sourdough. What was among the list of ingredients? Yeast! Genuine sourdough does not contain yeast!

Here is the full list of ingredients from the Coles website:

Details

Ingredients:

Wheat Flour, Water, Salt, Rye Flour, Malt [Barley, Malted Barley], Wheat Bran, Wheat Gluten, Yeast, Vitamins [Folic Acid, Thiamin].

Allergen:

May Contain SESAME, Contains CEREALS CONTAINING GLUTEN

Servings Per Pack:

12.0

I am assuming that the wheaten gluten in the list indicates that extra gluten in a straight form had been added to help increase the volume of the loaf. The malt is used as an aid to fermentation.

I don’t personally like the taste or the texture of the loaf although it is certainly much better than sliced white bread. It is certainly acceptable as a loaf of artisan-style yeast bread but it is not sourdough.

I believe all artisan bakers in Australia should be knocking on the door of their Federal MP asking that this misleading use of the word sourdough be stopped.

The only growing segment of the bread market in Australia is in artisan bread and particularly in authentic sourdough and the major manufacturers and supermarkets are cashing in on the weakness of authorities like the ACCC to take action.