Healthy landscapes are diverse. Traditional farming was diverse. The foods we evolved eating were diverse. Diversity Bread® simply asks one question:

What if bread reflected that same principle?

Diversity Bread® is built around the idea that bread can reconnect relationships that have become separated: soil and seed, farmers and bakers, fermentation and flavour, and the people who eat the bread.

It is a philosophy rooted in ecology, craftsmanship and an appreciation of the remarkable complexity of bread and reflecting may aspects of the bread we evolved eating.

Diversity and the Gut

One of the most exciting areas of modern nutrition research is our growing understanding of the gut microbiome – the trillions of microorganisms that live within us.

Research projects, including the American Gut Project, have helped scientists explore how diet influences the diversity of the gut microbiome and how different dietary patterns are associated with different microbial communities. 

We see bread as the opportunity to increase the diversity in the way we bake eat and share bread that contributes to a varied, plant-rich way of eating. Diversity Bread® is therefore not just about the flour, or the microbes that ferment it but is also about how bread how it is eaten.

Why we love the number thirty

One simple idea has become widely recognised in nutrition: aim for around 30 different plant foods each week.

That diversity includes grains, seeds, herbs, spices, legumes, nuts, fruit and vegetables—not simply thirty vegetables. Increasing the variety of plants in the diet has become a practical way of encouraging people to think beyond individual nutrients and towards dietary diversity. 

Our licensed bakers support this philosophy by using Botanical Blend Flour® and seasonal Meadows Blends, while encouraging people to enjoy Diversity Bread® alongside an even wider variety of plant foods.

The Diversity in your loaf is only part of the story.

The way we eat it matters just as much.

Never underestimate bread again.

When you redesign that way you approach bread to reflect what we need that includes community, nourishment, connection and diversity then everything changes. You see bread as a connection and a delicious fibre delivery system and the fermentation as an extension of the microbial diversity on our beautiful planet then you will understand why the bread you choose to bake eat and share everyday is one of the most powerful choices you make for you and your family.

Listen to the conversation

If you’d like to explore these ideas further, listen to Dr Vanessa Kimbell in conversation with Professor Tim Spector on the ZOE Science & Nutrition podcast:

Can Bread Be Healthy? – ZOE Science & Nutrition Podcast

Together they discuss bread, fermentation, dietary diversity and how bread can fit within a modern understanding of nutrition.

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Yet somewhere along the way, we lost this understanding. We disconnected.

We stripped bread down to its most basic component: a single grain, grown in vast monocultures, processed, refined and industrialised until it became disconnected from the natural world. We accepted this as normal. We forgot that bread was once diverse, alive and nourishing—for both the body and the landscapes from which it came.

Modern industrial bread reflects a very different food system. Designed for yield, consistency and efficiency, it relies on a small number of crop species that are frequently refined into the flours, starches and sugars that underpin many ultra-processed foods. in the video Below Dr Vanessa Kimbell explains more about the Science of Diversity and why this relationship is key to our philosophy.

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This licence is for real bakers — not supermarkets, not shortcuts.

If you ferment properly, bake with meaning, and care where your flour comes from, then this gives you something the industrial system can’t touch:

Protection. Recognition. And a place in a system that actually feeds people well.

This licence is for real bakers.
Not shortcuts.
No fast fermentation.

It’s for bakeries committed to proper fermentation, exceptional ingredients, and bread that nourishes both people and the land.

As a licensed bakery, you’ll gain access to Botanical Blend Flour, technical support, marketing resources and a growing network committed to changing the way bread is grown, baked and valued.

You’re not simply baking another loaf.

You’re helping build a food system where farming, fermentation, nutrition and flavour work together.

What You Get

• Support – We support our Licences with training, client liaison and marketing material.
• Flavour: Botanical Blend™ flours give you depth and aroma no white flour ever could. They’re packed with seeds, legumes, herbs and grains — fermented for flavour as well as function.
• Uniqueness: Your bread is your signature. No two Diversity Breads are the same — because you blend, shape, and bake it your way.
• Gut health integrity: You can say it with confidence — diversity is key to the microbiome. Every fibre counts.
• Storytelling power: Each loaf carries a QR code. When scanned, your customers learn how it was made — and why it matters.
• System change: 2.5p per loaf funds scholarships and social prescribing. You’re not just baking — you’re part of the solution.
• Protection: This licence keeps Diversity Bread in the hands of artisan bakers. It stops corporations from copying the name or diluting the standards.

How It Works

For breeds to qualify, they must:

• Use at least 20% Botanical Blend flour
• Ferment for 18+ hours using a real sourdough starter
• Avoid glyphosate-treated flour (regenerative or organic only)
• Commit to the Baking as Lifestyle Medicine protocol

Fees:

• Under 10 tonnes/year: £1 symbolic licence
• Over 10 tonnes: £1,000 base + £50 per tonne (≈2.5p per loaf)

This licence isn’t red tape.
It’s a standard.
It’s a statement.
It’s your proof that what you do matters — and can’t be stolen or faked.

Apply at diversitybread.com

Enquiries

every little bit gonna be

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Whether you want to bake it yourself, read the science behind it, or serve it in your restaurant or community, there are several ways to experience Diversity Bread®.

Bake it today

The quickest way to start is with Botanical Blend Flour. Our unique flour blend is produced under licence and available directly from our milling partner, Hodmedods. Simply order online and begin baking Diversity Bread® at home.

Buy Botanical Blend Flour →

The complete recipes, science and philosophy behind Diversity Bread® are explained in my new book, Proven.

More than a recipe book, Proven explores how bread can reconnect soil, farming, fermentation, the gut microbiome and health, and teaches you how to bake Diversity Bread® in your own kitchen.

Order Proven →

Learn to bake at The Sourdough School

If you’d like to go further, you can learn directly with us at The Sourdough School.

Learn the method

Our Diploma teaches the principles, science and practical skills behind Diversity Bread®, helping you understand not only how to bake it, but why every stage matters.

Explore Courses →

Commission Diversity Bread®

If you’re a chef, restaurant, hotel, café, school, hospital or care home, one of our licensed bakeries can bake Diversity Bread® specifically for you.

Together we’re creating a network of bakeries producing bread that supports both people and the landscapes that feed them.

Find a Licensed Bakery →

Find Diversity Bread®

Our directory of licensed bakeries is growing, making it easier to find Diversity Bread® near you.

We’re also working towards wider online availability and selected retail partners, with more announcements coming soon.

Find Diversity Bread® →

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Marketing? No we don’t have a marketing department.

What we do have is a foundation of genuine relationships that have taken decades to build, and a community. People who get their hands in the soil, and when we chat to the farmers we never start with by talking about yield or price. The most memorable conversations are the ones standing in the fields in your boots on a rainy spring day admiring the diversity in the hedgerows, or remarking how well the beans are growing this year.

When your conversations with the farmer is about the skylarks singing this spring because they have returned because the hedgerows are growing back you know you are getting things right. It tells us the land is changing. It reminds us that every decision made in a field and the mill echoes through the flour, the loaf and, ultimately, the food on our table.

This is why we ask that our bakers work closely with Hodmedods, our millers and our farmers. We don’t simply source ingredients; we build relationships. We know the stories behind the grains, pulses and botanicals because we know the people who grow them. That connection creates accountability, but more importantly, it creates care. The greatest measure of integrity is how a business treats the people who grow its food. Hodmedod’s has never forgotten that every harvest begins with a relationship.

.. and we will be introducing you to what is going on the farm as part of our newsletters .. because the farmers care for the land that grows the grain we eat. That matters.

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If you’re a shop, a restaurant, or anyone who would like to stock Diversity Bread®, the first step is to approach one of our licensed bakeries and speak to them directly. Your chosen bakery may already have a bread they can supply to you or you they will design the right loaf for you and work out the details — the breads, the fibre levels, quantities, delivery and everything practical — because the bread is baked, supplied and tailored at bakery level, not centrally. While we’re always here to support you as a stockist, and to help with the brand, the story and the QR-code materials your customers will use, the working relationship and the loaf itself are arranged with your bakery. So the simplest way to begin is to find your nearest licensed bakery and start the conversation with them.

Chosen for Excellence & Integrity

There are three bakeries to license to make Diversity Bread®. They are each very different — and what’s remarkable is that each bakery makes their Diversity Bread® so completely, diversely different that they’re notin competition with each other. They complement each other.

Why our bakeries don’t compete
Diversity Bread® isn’t a franchise, and our bakeries aren’t rivals. Each diversity bread is totally different and developed different and each bakery has its own specialist area. The bakeries we work with are hand picked for their understanding, excellence and their unique network. This is a system change. Every loaf baked, in every bakery, makes the whole idea stronger. Just as diversity makes bread better, it makes our bakers stronger together. The only thing we’re competing against is monoculture.

Our Licensed Bakeries

Diversity Bread® is baked only by licensed bakeries working to the Diversity Bread® standard, using Meadow Blend Botanical Flours®. These are the bakers you can work with to commission your Diversity Bread®.

Seven Seeded
Watford, Hertfordshire, WD18 8JA
Website: sevenseeded.co.uk · Instagram: @sevenseeded
A phenomenal family run artisan bakery established in 2006, making sourdough breads and pastries to order with premium, organic ingredients, and the holder of multiple Great Taste Awards. When you want extraordinary bread Seven Seeded is the first stop and the team developed our first licensed Diversity Bread® bakery, which is served at the three-Michelin-star restaurant The Fat Duck.

Peter Cooks Bread
53 The Hop Pocket, Bishop’s Frome, Worcester, WR6 5BT · 07837 255 916 / 07814 763 530
Website: petercooksbread.co.uk
We’ve known Peter for almost two decades and he has worked closely with founder Dr Vanessa Kimbell on the Proven Bread course, baking the range on behalf of The Sourdough School. A craft bakery at The Hop Pocket, baking real bread and delivering across Herefordshire and Worcestershire, with a farm shop on Saturdays and wholesale supply.

Paul Rhodes Bakery
Bakery: Lassell Street, Greenwich, London, SE10 9PJ · 020 8269 0460 · customerservice@paulrhodesbakery.co.uk
Shop & café: 37 King William Walk, Greenwich, London, SE10 9HU · 020 8858 8995
Website: paulrhodesbakery.co.uk
A Greenwich bakery built on “the art of baking,” with over 100 years of combined experience and bread made from four simple ingredients — flour, water, salt and time — with long, slow fermentation. Retail and wholesale.

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Diversity Bread® is the collective name for breads baked using the Baking as Lifestyle Medicine (BALM) Protocol developed by Dr Kimbell has been teaching at The Sourdough School for over 2 decades.

The Proven Programme is Dr Vanessa Kimbell’s 13-step framework for applying the principles of Baking as Lifestyle Medicine in everyday practice. Designed for home bakers, dietitians, nutritional psychiatrists, nutritionists, functional medicine practitioners and other healthcare professionals trained in lifestyle medicine, it brings together evidence-informed baking, fermentation, nutritional science and gut microbiome research in a practical, accessible approach. The programme provides a structured framework for incorporating long-fermented, diverse breads into dietary and lifestyle practice, translating complex scientific concepts into practical skills that can be used at home or in professional settings..— Dr Kimbell

The Sourdough School Diploma teaches practitioners to bake Diversity Bread, in the first year and the 2nd year is training in personalisation of bread.

The goal of the programme is for bakers to bake diversity bread, boost fibre and plant diversity, and ferment bread in line with the most up-to-date research on fibre and diversity, and to eat your bread in a way that supports a healthy gut microbiome. It translates complex gut research into the way you bake eat and share bread that supports health through Baking as Lifestyle Medicine, and provides reader and student with a year long programme that monitors blood sugar, gut health and mental health though backings lifestyle medicine.

Serves as a step-by-step guide to the whole programme.

It’s a way of using bread as a fibre and diversity delivery to help look after your health, with Dr Kimbell teaching Baking as Lifestyle Medicine. It’s built around a simple idea from gut research — that eating a wide variety of plants each week supports a healthier gut — and it shows you how to eat, and how to bake, bread that does exactly that. It serves as a step-by-step guide to the whole programme.

Translating complex gut research into everyday baking habits.

The book, Proven, is where it all comes together: it walks you through the programme step by step, including how to keep an eye on things like your blood sugar, your mood and your digestion. What the programme does is ask you to monitor how you feel as you increase your fibre and diversity, and change the way you eat bread to be more connected to your community — and see what difference it makes to the way you feel.

At the heart of it is Diversity Bread — a slowly fermented sourdough made with a botanical blend of heritage grains, seeds, pulses and edible botanicals, so a single loaf brings many different plants into your week rather than just one or two. Each bread is rated as one of four levels of fibre, allowing people to rebuild their ability to digest bread slowly. Dr Kimbell includes trackers to help you log how your body responds to increased fibre.

And you don’t have to bake it yourself. Diversity Bread licensed bakers bake Diversity Bread to a strict standard, applying the science from Dr Kimbell’s doctoral research — so whether you buy a loaf or make your own, you’re getting bread built on the same principles.

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The way you eat your bread can matter as much as the bread itself. however this section is about teaching people how to eat their bread and this is educational content and about about a behaviour, not a health claim about the products.

One of reasons that diversity bread matters is because this is not a cheap fast consumer product. It is a slow thoughtful way of looking at your daily bread. Who you reframe your bread as a nourishment and fibre delivery system then the product and onto the behaviour — and does it without asking anyone to give anything up.

Diversity is key to gut health but trying eat more variety start every meal from zero can be hard. So when you bread has a wide diversity in the first place you have a head start on the number of diverse ingredients on your plate.

Almost all food advice is subtractive: cut this out, avoid that, eat less. This about more. What I want rot share about sequenced-and-symbiotic habits is that this is about increasing your diversity, using bread as your start point and re-ordering the sequence you eat your bread. There no fancy equipment, and no major changes, this is about small easy delicious modifications. I want you hold two ides that almost never sit together. I want you to think about the way you feel after yo usher eaten and consider how you eat your bread as part of your personal metabolic story (glucose, insulin, gastric emptying.) The other half I want you to feel connected when you eat your bread. I love the idea that you might take off your show in the park, slow down, eat your bread with people, communicate to your nervous system that you feel safe, anticipation switching on your digestion . This is about putting on that moment, in real live of a beautiful slow gentle habit that supports your system and the wider system that you live in. Your small moments, breakfast, lunch and supper all add up to a lifetime of moments shared. This is beautiful brea has it should be

Does it really matter how I eat bread — or only what kind of bread I eat?

Does it really matter how I eat bread — or only what kind of bread I eat?

The way you eat your matters as much as the bread itself. Choosing a real, long-fermented loaf like Diversity Bread is the first half of the story — but there is a second beautiful opportunity and that is just as important as picking the healthiest bread, and that is how you eat your bread.

Certainly. I think this flows naturally as an FAQ answer and stays close to your voice.

How you eat your bread matters just as much as the bread itself. The very same slice can have a completely different effect depending on the context in which you eat it. Eating in a rush, under stress, or feeling lonely changes the way your body digests and responds to food. We are social creatures. When we slow down, share a meal, eat something green or fermented alongside our bread, and include some protein and healthy fats, we create the conditions for our bodies to make the most of every mouthful.

Use your breakfast and lunch as an opportunity.

Think of breakfast, lunch or supper as an opportunity to practise lifestyle medicine. A simple meal of sourdough with hummus, pesto or cream cheese, perhaps with a handful of salad leaves or some fermented vegetables, becomes a gentle, nourishing way of feeding not only yourself but the trillions of microbes living in your gut. Nothing about the bread has changed. Everything about the way you eat it has.

Share

One of the simplest things you can do is make an extra sandwich and invite a colleague, neighbour or friend to share lunch with you. It doesn’t need to be a long occasion. Just twenty unhurried minutes spent eating together can make a remarkable difference to your relationships and that sense of connection.

If the weather allows, take your bread outside. Sit on a bench or beneath a tree. You don’t even have to fill the silence with conversation. There is something deeply restorative about sharing food in companionable silence, enjoying the fresh air, the sunshine and each other’s company.

If you haven’t had time to make a sandwich, simply slice some bread and take a pot of hummus with you. Sit on a park bench and dip your bread as you eat. It’s wonderfully simple, satisfying and easy to share. If hummus isn’t your favourite, a good pesto or some cream cheese works beautifully too.

These small rituals may seem insignificant, but together they transform eating from simply filling your stomach into an act of nourishment for both your body and your microbiome. Sometimes the healthiest ingredient in your meal isn’t an ingredient at all—it’s just the way you choose to eat it.

Why is it important to slow down and tell your body you are safe when you eat?

Why is it important to slow down and tell your body you are safe when you eat?

Digestion does not begin in the stomach. It begins the moment you anticipate something delicious — the smell of toast, the sight of a loaf being torn, the sound of a knife going through crust. That anticipation is your body getting ready: saliva, stomach acid, digestive enzymes and bile all quietly switch on before the first bite arrives.

This is a moment when you can slow down and consciously support your nervous system feeling safe. We are built to digest in what is often called "rest and digest" mode. If you eat while rushing, stressed, distracted or standing up, your body reads it as a threat and holds back the very juices that would have handled your food well. If you eat sitting down, breathing, unhurried and in good company, you send the opposite signal: I am safe, this is good, there is time. Your digestion opens up to meet the meal.

So the first step is the gentlest one of all. Sit down. Slow down. Let yourself look forward to it. This is not a soft extra; it is physiology. A calm nervous system is the ground everything else is built on.

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