29/08/2026
Following on from the excellent video by Chris van Tulleken at the Royal Institution about ultra-processed food, I think we need much more honesty and clarity about what food labels actually tell us.
UPF is useful as a way of starting a conversation, but it is not a full measure of food quality, provenance or how ingredients were produced. A loaf can carry reassuring language or be made by a British mill, but that does not automatically tell us where the grain was grown, how it was farmed, what has been added, or who benefits from the supply chain.
That matters to me as a small baker because I have recently learned, after checking the rules properly, that I need to be much more careful with the words I use.
I have had to change some of my product descriptions. Even when a loaf is simply flour, water and sea salt, I cannot call the finished loaf “organic or regenerative” unless I meet the specific requirements to make those claims. I can talk honestly about my ingredients and suppliers, but I need to be precise about what I say.
I understand why rules around organic, regenerative and wider environmental claims exist. Customers deserve protection from vague claims and empty marketing.
But that is exactly why it can feel frustrating when larger businesses use language, branding and packaging that creates an impression of wholesome, sustainable or carefully sourced food, without giving customers the full picture.
Meanwhile, small bakers who are buying flour from growers and millers we can name, asking how grain is grown, paying more for organic and regenerative ingredients, and making bread from scratch can have limited ways to explain that difference.
I am not asking for a free pass. I want proper standards and honest labelling. But there needs to be room for small businesses to explain what the extra cost actually supports.
Where I can, I choose flour from growers and millers working with organic and regenerative principles: approaches that aim to care for soil, biodiversity and the wider landscape.
And it is worth saying that flour milled in Britain is not automatically made with British-grown grain. A British mill may use a mixture of homegrown and imported wheat, depending on the flour, the season and availability. Milling locally is valuable, but it is not the whole story. I think it matters to ask who milled the flour, where the grain was grown, and whether organic or regenerative methods were used to grow it.
The price is not just for flour, water, salt and time. It helps support people producing grain with organic and regenerative principles in mind, millers preserving its character, and a food system that values soil, land and long-term care.
That is what I want The Noisy Table to stand for.
