Town bakers hailed for using their loaves to cut salt content

When food standards officers from Barnsley Council visited bakeries in 2009 they found that, in some cases, just two breadcakes without filling contained an adult’s total 6g daily allowance of salt.

Bakers were immediately asked to reduce the salt content and several agreed to work with the council in a bid to meet the national Food Standards Agency (FSA) guidelines.

One of the bakeries with the lowest salt content was the Cottage Bakery in Ben Bank Road, Silkstone Common, where the level was 0.6g of salt per 100g of bread. The FSA standard is 1g of salt per 100g of bread.

Owner and baker Michael Daniel, who has run the business for 25 years, said “not one” of his customers had complained after he reduced the amount of salt in his recipe.

Mr Daniel, who starts work at 1am to have fresh bread ready for his customers at breakfast time, added: “We decided to try and get below the target and we did it by gradually removing the salt from our recipe really slowly.

“It hasn’t made a difference to how the bread bakes and as far as we are concerned it means our bread is even healthier than it was before.”

Other bakers who had just 0.6g of salt in their products were Hough Lane Bakery, in Wombwell, and Rob Royd Farm Shop, in Worsbrough. They were congratulated by Coun Roy Miller, Barnsley Council’s food safety spokesman.