This is the weekly bulletin from Loaf in Stirchley, with our specials, lunches and cookery school classes.
🍞 🥐 Pre-order your Bread and Pastries
Pre-order the bread and pastries to ensure you get what you want.
For now we have stopped taking donations for B30 Foodbank. Those who need it can still claim a free loaf from the Pay it Forward donations pot and we still donate our leftover bread to Incredible Surpluss and the B30 Foodbank at the end of each day, but for now we need to focus on raising funds to move to Stirchley Co-operative Development early next year. If you still want to make a cash donation to B30 Foodbank you can do via their website here.
A Note on Our Prices
From next week, we’ll be making a small increase to some of our prices in the shop and online. This decision hasn’t been made lightly - it’s to help us keep up with rising ingredient, energy, and staffing costs while continuing to pay fair wages and use high-quality, sustainably sourced ingredients.
We’re so grateful for your ongoing support - every loaf and pastry you buy from us helps to keep Loaf going so thank you for valuing what we do.
Our opening hours are:
Wed-Fri: 12-6
Saturday: 8-1
Visit us at 1421 Pershore Road, Stirchley, B30 2JL (map)
Sweets This Week
Double Chocolate Cookies (Ve)
Pretzel Blondies
Raspberry Blondies
Banana & Date Oat Slice (Ve)
& more!
Saturday Sourdough Specials
Fresh Ginger & Molasses
Roast Potato, Garlic & Rosemary
No reservations - first-come, first-served.
This Week's Lunches
Wednesday
Tarka Daal with Sourdough (Ve)
Thursday
Soup: Celeriac and Apple Soup (Ve) with Sourdough
Friday
Curry: Roast Carrot and Butternut Squash Curry with Sourdough (Ve)
Salt Beef with Pickles + Mustard on Challah
Wed - Fri
Sourdough Pizza: Potato Thins and Red Onion with Mozzarella and Parmesan
Wed - Fri
Ham and Cheese Croissant
Rocket Pesto & Cheese Croissant (V)
Wed – Sat:
Sausage Roll
Vegetable Roll (Ve)
Lunches are made fresh weekdays from 12 noon.
Our menu for the week — with ingredients and allergens — is on the website.
Cookery School Classes
Cookery School Update
Our October & November classes are live and filling up fast - so if you’d like a spot, now is the time to book!
If you’re already thinking about gifts, our Cookery School Gift Vouchers make perfect Christmas presents and can be redeemed anytime in 2026, once we’re settled in our new home.
All-Day Classes with Availability:
🦞 Seafood Masterclass 🦞
Saturday 18th October 2025 10:30am – 4pm
A hands-on course with Lap-fai Lee exploring all things seafood. You’ll learn how to prep and cook everything from mackerel, seabass, and lemon sole to squid, prawns, oysters - with both Asian and European techniques.
🥖 Simply Sourdough 🥖
Saturday 22nd November 2025 9:30 - 4pm
Spend a day learning the art of sourdough where you’ll cover everything from caring for your starter to kneading, shaping, proving, and baking both wheat and rye sourdough loaves. You’ll take home your own dough to bake the next day, plus starters and full recipes to continue baking confidently at home.
🥐 Sweet Breads & Viennoiserie 🥐
Saturday 29th November 2025 9:30 - 4pm
A hands-on course exploring sweet breads and viennoiserie. You’ll learn to laminate dough and bake treats like cinnamon buns, cardamom knots, hot cross buns, croissants, pain au chocolat, danishes, and more.
🍞 Bread: Back to Basics 🍞
Saturday 6th December 2025 9:30 - 4pm
Bread: Back to Basics is a day-long bread experience. In a world where real bread is so hard to come by, this course will equip you to make consistently good, wholesome bread at home. This hands-on course takes bread back to its essential ingredients - flour, water, salt and yeast - and teaches you a great repertoire of beautiful breads based on these basic building blocks.
Evening Classes with Availability:
🔪 Knife Skills & Maintenance 🔪
Tuesday 14th October 2025 6:30-9:30pm
Learn how to prep with precision. Lap will guide you through essential knife grips, cutting techniques, sharpening, honing, and care - skills that elevate every kitchen routine.
🥟 Dumplings 🥟
Tuesday 21st October 2025 6:30–9:30pm
You’ll learn to make dumpling dough and fillings from scratch, including vegetarian, pork, Sichuan lamb wontons, and crispy fried dim sum-style wontons.
🍜 Ramen 🍜
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 6:30–9:30pm
A workshop with Lap-fai Lee that dives deep into the art of broth, noodles, toppings, and seasoning. Expect rich flavours, smart technique, and the know‑how to recreate at home.
🍝 Handmade Pasta 🍝
Wednesday 5th November 2025 6:30-9:30pm
Wednesday 26th November 2025 6:30-9:30pm
This course will teach you the skills to make fresh pasta at home, with fillings and sauces to accompany it. We will be showing you both hand rolling and cutting techniques as well as using a pasta machine. Recipes include a making fresh egg pasta to pair with classic sauces. We will make a classic carbonara, puttanesca and tortillini filled with ricotta and spinach.
🥘 Thaali 🥘
Tuesday 18th November 2025 6:30–9:30pm
Join Chef Haseen and learn the secrets of another Indian speciality - Thaali - popular in India, Nepal, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Singapore. A hands-on workshop where you can feast on all the dishes you make family-style, so arrive hungry!
Coming Soon:
New Jams & Preserves Course (2026)
Booking Info:
All equipment, recipes, aprons & refreshments provided.
Please check the individual class restrictions for dietary requirements and allergies, and get in touch with any queries.
Spaces are limited and booked on a first-come, first-served basis upon receipt of payment. We require 100% payment in advance for all of our courses.
Autumn Birmingham
Co-op Meet Up
The next local Co-op meet up will take place on Tuesday 21st October 6:30pm - 10pm at Pineapple House 171 Pineapple Road, B30 2SY.
Come along to this meet up to learn, network and socialise with fellow cooperators, learn about worker co-ops or benefit from mutual support.
Usually held on Tuesday evenings once a quarter (or whenever we can organise them), and led by local worker co-ops. These meetups offer a relaxed all table discussion following a loose format including updates from attendees about projects they're involved in. Groups and individuals can bring questions and benefit from mutual learning or find out what's happening in the local co-operative sector. We sometimes start with a short talk or guest speaker, if you'd like to speak get in touch.
You don’t need to be part of a co-op (yet ;)) to join - just come along anyway.
This Saturday!!
Birmingham Bike Foundry’s 15th Anniversary Party
This Saturday, 18th October 2025 is the 15th Anniversary Celebration from Birmingham Bike Foundry at their soon to be old shop in 1539 Pershore Road before we all move into the Stirchley Co-operative Development.
Loaf will be supplying freshly baked pizza for this special evening, delivered by cargo bike - with vegan and vegetarian topping options.
Come along from 5pm, enjoy food, tunes spun by former worker & NTS Radio DJ Matt, great company, and support BBF as they raise funds for a parquet floor in their new shopfront.
Support our Crowdfunder!
A Huge Thank You! 💛
We’ve been absolutely blown away by your support - in less than two weeks, we’ve already reached 29% of our £25,000 target! Your generosity and enthusiasm mean the world to us.
There’s still a way to go - 73% to reach our goal - so please keep spreading the word and sharing our campaign with anyone who might want to get involved.
You can donate for the move without going online in our shop as well.
And a little note for those who’ve purchased rewards: Fliss will be in touch soon with more details. Thank you again for helping us take this next big step for Loaf!
Gift Vouchers
Give the Gift of Learning!
If you’re thinking of gifting one class but you are not sure which one would be preferred you could buy a gift voucher instead.
Our vouchers can be purchased in any value you like for redemption against future bookings. Vouchers purchased online will give you a downloadable pdf which can be emailed to the recipient directly, or to you for printing and giving to them by hand. Alternatively you can come to us and buy vouchers in the shop.
Thanks for all your Continued Support
See you soon!
Pete, Andy, Kate, Dorit, Michael, Dave, Lee, Fliss, Rach, Neil, Molly, Zahrah & Mina
Address: 1421 Pershore Road, Stirchley, B30 2JL - map
Website: loaf.coop
Updates on: Instagram
Review us on: Google | Tripadvisor