Urmston-based home baker Ali Paterson maintained a keen interest in buying and eating sourdough well before 2020 but discovered the joys of baking his own after the pandemic hit in March.
He wasn’t the only one. Thousands of other people had the same idea and Instagram grids were filled with odd sourdough loaves of varying degrees of success. Strong flour suddenly became like gold dust as mills struggled to produce more retail sized 1.5kg bags.
Ali stumbled upon a few YouTube videos and was amazed to see that (with a little patience and practise), wonderful sourdough loaves were something you could produce at home. He became obsessed with working out the perfect method, created his own starter (which he named Carlos) and eventually graduated from making loaves that looked like hard frisbees, to bread that he was proud to show off and share.
Ali had always planned to share his new baking obsession with friends and family when restrictions lifted, so when the third lockdown hit in December 2020, he worked out a way that he could teach them to bake their own.
He was put on part-time furlough at the advertising agency he works for full-time and needed a project to focus on. So his wife suggested selling sourdough kits for people to make in their own home kitchen and SourCo was born. “I knew there was a myth that sourdough seemed complicated, but this kit would give them a nice jump-off point,” says Ali.
The kits contain a starter (made from Carlos), and step by step guide to baking a loaf. Ali has also now shot and edited fool-proof YouTube videos himself.
“I also liked that sourdough starter can be used in loads of different recipes,” added Ali, “so I set up an instagram page with recipes and inspiration.”
Business has been going strong. “It's been going really well so far,” continues Ali. "We've had some lovely feedback from first time bakers and even managed to get stocked in local shops, including Stretford Foodhall.”
Also also set up and launched an Etsy shop in January - which turned out to be great timing with the lockdown over winter. “We sold hundreds of kits, and I got to see friends who I thought had no interest in baking, create amazing bread!” says Ali.
From there, he created a dried version of the starter kit which we is now on sale locally in Sarah's Yard, The Cheese Court in Urmston and Stretford Food Hall. “We even branched out into baking tools by asking other independent Etsy shops to help,” he adds. “A lovely shop called The Hippy Rose made us branded bread bags to sell, and a talented woodwork company (Three Pin Design) make us handmade bread lames which we sell in the shop. It all ties into our homemade ethos.”
You can find the SourCo website, where you can buy the kits: https://www.sourco.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/sourco_uk/