A question we get from our customers is why we choose not to slice our sourdough bread before selling our loaves. We understand that everyone prioritizes convenience. Store chains sell sliced bread in the plastic bags, making it easy to pull out a slice and toast it without much effort.

The few seconds it takes to slice through sourdough bread before eating might appear like an unnecessary task. But what if we tell you it has benefits and puts the sourdough at a quality level above the seemingly convenient pre-sliced sourdough? 

Making high-quality sourdough bread requires a unique degree of mastery that takes several hours and even days (yes, days). We are exceedingly proud of the work that goes on in our bakery to produce the perfect crusty sourdough with a chewy interior and noticeable zest. Thus, we make sure to leave our sourdough still in one piece so that our customers can experience the joy of cutting through the crust and eating the still-fresh bread.

The Quality of Sourdough Bread

Preserving the quality of sourdough bread is tricky, yet essential to the enjoyment of the experience. From the point you cut into it, the quality and freshness of the sourdough start to change. This means that the longer artisanal bread stays unconsumed after being cut, the less enjoyable the bread is. 

Generally though, sourdough bread is able to maintain its integrity for longer periods of time because of its high acidic content. Also, the lactobacillus bacteria that emit antifungal compounds help slow down the degradation and fermentation processes, which cause the bread to remain fresher for longer in comparison to other bread types.

But despite this advantage, immediately when you cut into the sourdough and it’s exposed to air, it loses zest very quickly, and the quality starts to drop. Therefore, we prefer that our customers get the bread in its original form so they can slice into it just before eating.

We Don’t Want to Replace Human Hands

To slice bread manually seems like an arduous and time-consuming activity that can easily be done by a machine. If we wanted to cut the sourdough before sending it out, that would mean employing the use of machines rather than people, but we have no interest in replacing our human hands with bolts anytime soon.

We believe that sourdough baking is an art that requires hands-on expertise and tenderness. Baking sourdough can take up to 36 hours, and it cannot be mass-produced on the same scale as everyday bread without having to financially undercut the hardworking employees, and force them into extended working hours in a bid to meet production and sales demands. 

The beauty of artisanal products comes from their hand-craftsmanship and the fact that they are made one piece at a time. Mass production undervalues the art. It can only be artisanal if the quality and quantity are perfectly balanced.

Now that we’ve explained the reasons why we’ve chosen to sell our sourdough unsliced, we hope that this will help you appreciate our commitment to quality, taste, and the longevity of our sourdough bread. We also hope that this makes the time and effort taken to slice the sourdough at home feel less like a waste and more like the final act in producing a masterpiece.