Our Story

We love bread … our love affair with the perfect loaf is what started A Bread Affair.

A Bread Affair has roots in our community, our agriculture and the unique blend of soil, climate and passion that is our life here on the Pacific coast.

We’re not a French bakery. We’re not an Italian bakery. We are of this place, Vancouver.

We stand for the unique brand of West Coast values. Your values. We bring sustainability principles and environmental practices into all of our baking and ingredient sourcing. We are against industrial food production, GMO’s and factory farming. We are for the humane treatment of animals.

We believe our bread is uniquely intimate because food should be about unbridled passion. We passionately craft your bread fresh each day with our own hands, reflecting our unique brand of intimacy. Connecting what you eat with our local farmers, our community, and our Earth.   You matter. Let us connect personally through food.

Break bread with us.

We Are…

Certified Organic

We’re proud to be British Columbia’s first Certified Organic Bakery.   In British Columbia it means nothing to be labeled ‘Organic’. No inspections, no audits, just the word of clever marketers trying to catch a trend (and get you to buy their product). ‘Organic’ is now what ‘Natural’ was in the early 2000’s – a deceiving adjective with little integrity and substance.

Look for the Canadian Certified Organic logo when you buy. It means that you have complete assurance that there are no GMOs, chemicals or pesticides involved with the growing of the ingredients, and that there are no additives, or stabilizers or preservatives in our products. Our Certified Organic Auditors make sure that all our products meet these stringent organic standards.

You’ll find our certified organic logo stamped on all our bread.

Locally Grown

Being local doesn’t just mean that we’re locally owned and operated by local Vancouver residents. Or that our products are manufactured in the Vancouver area.

We source our ingredients from local farmers where available. We sell alongside these farmers at Farmer’s Markets throughout the Greater Vancouver Area.   We grow our own wheat at Organic Farms throughout the Fraser Valley.   For many of our local wheat farmers, we agree to purchase the entire crop in the springtime, prior to planting. It ensures a fair return to the farmers, and ensures that we have the specific grains we want to bake with.   No other bakery in Vancouver can claim this. We are truly local.

Our farmers work hard to feed our community. Every year, one of our farms has an open house so you can see every step of the process: from the farm to our bakers’ hands, to your table. We hope to see you out soon.

 

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Artisan Crafted

An artist creates. Each loaf of our bread is its own piece of art, a unique hand crafted creation of the artisan baker that forms it from our palette of top quality ingredients. Each loaf has its own distinctness and lacks conformity, yet meets our strictest quality standards.   While artisan craftsmanship may limit how much we can produce each day, we would rather produce less of a top quality product than an abundance of machine-pressed loaves.

Our artisan bakers have trained under Tanya Belanger and have trained at some of the finest baking and culinary institutes, from the Art Institute of Vancouver and Vancouver Community College’s renowned baking programme, to the Cordon Bleu and other international schools. But above all, it’s passion that we look for when choosing a new candidate to become a part of our family.

Sustainability

Our-Story-2It’s how we live our life, here in BC. When we live among the unspoiled beauty and majesty that is our home, it’s important to tread lightly on this place. Organic agriculture is among the most sustainable farming practices in the world. A Bread Affair supports the Organic Farmers and the rural communities here in BC. We’ve been active in supporting the Agricultural Land Reserve and know the relationship between farms and farmers, and our food.

None of our breads (or other bakery products) end their life in the landfill. Some of our fresh leftovers are given to those in need through Quest Food Exchange, a local not-for-profit organization that offers accessibility to a variety of affordable and healthy foods for low income and marginalized individuals. Quest is only one of the many charities that receive our bread.

Products that are at the end of their shelf life and that can be reprocessed into breadcrumbs, croustini’s or croutons, are given new life. Finally, any remaining products are used to feed livestock. All our products are certified organic, pure grain products and are a valuable source of animal feed for our farm partners. In exchange, much of the eggs, and cheeses that we use in the bakery are from our farms that use our end of life products for animal feed. We believe it’s a healthy circle of life that makes for a dramatically more sustainable world.

Our packaging is fully compostable and recyclable. We consulted with the City of Vancouver engineering at the design stage to ensure that we could contribute to the solution to growing landfills, rather than be part of the problem.

Our delivery fleet is powered by lower polluting natural gas. We emit less than half the greenhouse gases compared with gasoline or diesel powered delivery vehicles. We will be soon adding bicycle-powered delivery in some core areas of Vancouver as well. We will keep you updated on our process.

Our bakery has been reviewed by BC Hydro’s PowerSmart Program and we have incorporated many of their suggestions into our operations. From high efficiency lighting to better venting, we continue to make progress to a more sustainable future for our children and the generations to come. Like you, we certainly have more that we’ll be doing in the future, but every loaf of A Bread Affair breads embodies our collective desire to keep BC green.

GRANVILLE ISLAND BAKERY

1680 Johnston Street (beside Granville Island Public Market main building)
Vancouver, B.C. V6H 3S2 ‎

Tel: 604 695 0000
Email: bakery@abreadaffair.com
Hours: Mon – Thurs 8:30 am to 7:00 pm,  Fri – Sun 8:30 am to 7:30 pm including Holidays

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Copyright 2019 A Bread Affair

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Our Story