Mobile bakery bakes bread for 80 school kids

27 November 2013: A group of learners in the Wellington farmlands feasted on chocolate pastries and a loaf of bread each when a corporate strategic planning session created a first and visited the school with a portable wood-fired rocket oven to bake for the kids.

Learning Curve EOH, a leader in the digital education software industry added a meaningful component to their year-end strategic planning session by learning to bake and then taking a collection of portable wood-fired rocket ovens out into the Wellington winelands to bake for the 70 learners and teachers at Bergrivier Primary school in Wellington.

Learning Curve EOH and social entreneurs, BREADrev© teamed up to bake up a storm in Wellington.

According to Learning Curve EOH Business Development Executive, Tim Smith the company has an annual strategic planning session, which we try and expose our staff to new experiences, and create an opportunity for creativity and teamwork. “This year we decided to partner with BREADrev©, so our staff could learn to bake and then we selected a local Wellington school to bake for”.

“We showed the children the vocational skill of baking as well as feeding them for a day. Many of these kids come to school without having eating breakfast or lunch”, said Tim Smith.

The children each received a chocolate pastry and a loaf of home-made bread to take home. “I want to challenge other corporates to engage with BREADrev©. This organization teaches skills, creates jobs, enables communities to eat and develops small micro-enterprise”, said Smith.

According to Smith, Learning Curve’s mission is to simplify technology, empower educators, professionals and inspire students.

Jeremy Barty, the visionary behind the project said: “We’re passionate about baking bread and we’re focusing our skills and passion on teaching people in poor communities to bake bread in highly efficient and cost-effective portable wood-fired rocket ovens, which require no electricity”.

“BREADrev runs is a mobile bakery school, the only one of its kind in South Africa. Our ovens are portable and so is our bakery school”, said Barty. We also distribute our ovens and we have a vision for a supply company in the future.

‘Aside from my passion for baking artisan bread, I want BREADrev to help individuals and families create an income opportunity with minimal capital inputs and low overheads to generate a daily revenue that is equal or better than basic formal employment’, said Barty.

“In partnership with A Reaching Hand and Unisa, we launched our first mobile bakery school in the Orange IQ Learning and Nutrition Kitchen in Nkanini, Khayalitsha in October. We trained nine students in to bake bread in portable wood-fired rocket ovens and three small BREADshops have opened where the students are using their baking and business training”, he added.

BREADrev raised the initial funds through two crowd-funding campaigns on Indiegogo and Thundafund and this enabled us to establish our first venture in Nkanini, one of the poorest communities in Cape Town”, said Barty.

“A very high percentage of the community of 300 000 people are unemployed, the area has no running water and electricity.

According to Barty, who also works in corporate change, the BREADrev training package includes a medium portable wood-fired rocket oven, four-six weeks of learning to bake, basic business skills, basic equipment, opening ingredients and on-going mentorship to ensure the BREADshop gets up and running.

As a purist, Barty has integrated ancient practices into his bread-baking, which further reduces the need for expensive equipment, and uses time and the natural chemical reactions of the ingredients”, says Barty.

The mobile bakery school and the resulting BREADshops will also work totally off the grid – no electricity is required. The ovens use a minimum amount of wood – one bag of wood can do four bakes (128 loaves)

BREADrev, with reverence, reviving, revolutionizing and revving up the bread industry – teaching ordinary South Africans to bake bread in efficient portable wood-fired rocket ovens.