Last week, we had the opportunity to visit Modern Baker‘s new R&D kitchen on the outskirts of Kidlington. The Nordic-inspired space is an opportunity for the team to produce a pioneering healthy range of bread, cakes and biscuits.

Many Oxford locals will already be familiar with Modern Baker, from its pale jade-fronted bakery-cafe in Summertown. The popular venue has been serving up ‘healthier’ baked goods since 2015, but the cafe was just the beginning.

Jump forward to 2018 and Modern Baker has a published recipe book, launched a range of retail products, opened a new R&D site, increasing their production capacity to 20,000 units a week, and are undertaking a two-year research project to drive healthier baking techniques industry-wide using a government grant they were recently awarded.

Founder, Melissa Sharp, embarked on a discovery journey into how nutrition links to stress and chronic illness, after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer back in 2010.

Sticking to a diet of whole foods, Melissa found she wasn’t succumbing to the usual side effects chemotherapy brings.

Melissa and her partner, Leo Campbell, decided healthy eating was the direction they wanted their careers to go in. Modern Baker then launched in 2015 and Lindsey Stark was hired as Head Baker.

Lindsey studied at Nottingham School of Artisan Food to become a professionally trained artisan baker; equally passionate about pushing the boundaries of healthier baking, Lindsey and Melissa were a perfect pairing. They worked on creating natural sourdough baked goods with significantly reduced refined sugar, eliminating it where possible. One of the first things they do when reinventing a ‘sweet treat’ is to slash the sugar content in half; they then replace the remaining with unrefined sweeteners like coconut sugar, dates, maple syrup and raw honey.

Modern Baker released a range of 12 retail products in 2017, featuring bread, biscuits and cakes. Some of these have found their way onto shelves at Selfridges and Planet Organic.

Modern Baker has since embarked on five separate research projects, partly government-funded with grants, with others planned. A current project sees them partnering with Newcastle University’s Cell & Molecular Biosciences department.

Projects follow Modern Baker’s mission ‘to improve the quality of dietary carbohydrates.

The latest venture, the R&D kitchen, allows the scope to develop new products and upscale production for the mass market. The bright open space allows views into the development kitchen, making space and ethos fully transparent.

At the heart of all this though, lays a simple principle; their entire range is made from a simple 48hr fermentation process, starting with just three ingredients: stoneground flour, water, and air.

Melissa gave us a few tips for anyone interested in following a more natural, whole food diet like hers. While Melissa initially stuck to her diet dutifully, she now sticks to an 80/20 rule; she eats whole foods 80% of the time, allowing some flexibility so she’s not on high alert all the time.

The Modern Baker cookbook is a good place to start. Melissa and Leo recommend restocking with staples and basics, and said that over time it gets easier.

You have to make a commitment, then there only is one way forward – home cooking or home composing and stop eating ultra-processed. It will take some effort, but there’s nothing more tasty & cheaper than leek and potato soup with bread

Leo Campbell

Ultra-processed foods have been in the headlines recently; a French study of 105,000 people hinted the more of such foods people ate, the greater their risk of cancer. Modern Baker are now finding themselves at the forefront of ‘healthier eating’, becoming known as the ‘carb hackers’ in their industry.

So what’s next for Modern Baker?

They’d like to make the brand nationally available affordably, bringing healthy baking to the masses. We’re looking forward to seeing them grow. Naturally of course!

‘Modern Baker: A New Way To Bake‘ by Melissa Sharp with Lindsay Stark is out now (Ebury Press, RRP £26). Modern Baker’s range of healthy baked goods are available in Selfridges (London, Birmingham, Manchester Trafford and Manchester Exchange), Planet Organic and their Oxford-based cafe-bakery at 214 Banbury Road, OX2 7BY. Photography by Laura Edwards.