HOW do you right the balance? Correct a 21st century global food system that leaves local communities with low value jobs and poor quality food?

The answer: one step at a time. “They have taken all the value away from communities and that’s a massive issue,” said Andy Haddon, co-founder of Wylam based social enterprise Earth Doctors.

“We can’t change the global food supply chain, but we can show a different path.

“If we can develop a local heritage project in which locally-grown grains are milled locally and turned into local produce, creating jobs for local people and healthy food that is actually nutritious, well, maybe it will grow out from there.”

And that is the reasoning behind the most advanced of Earth Doctors’ projects, the Artisan Baking Community – an enterprise that would be entirely justified in making itself a celebratory cake.

For after two years in the trying, the team has finally got the planning permission it needs to bring its bakery operations back to Wylam.

It has had something of a nomadic existence in the three years since the enterprise was launched, begging time in other organisations’ kitchens when they weren’t otherwise being used.

Having lost access to the facilities at Corbridge’s Dilston College when Mencap sold up, it moved to a place in Seaton Delaval and then on to their current baking base in the kitchens of another charity, Earth Balance, on the outskirts of Bedlington.

But mephisto! Just before Christmas, it finally got the go-ahead to install a kitchen in the Falcon Community Centre. The dream – a fully-fledged bakery on home turf – is taking shape.

There is the last hurdle to get over, the small question of the £15,000 to £20,000 in match-funding they need to raise to get the £70,000 promised to them by the European-backed Leader fund.

But the search for a sponsor/sponsors aside, Andy’s attention is now focused on that delicious day when the ovens fire up in the premises they will actually be sharing with Wylam Library.

“We believe we will be the only bakery in Britain based in a library,” laughed Andy.

“We already store our ingredients there and set up a stall every Saturday morning to sell our bread. It’s been a great collaboration, because people come in to get their books and bread at the same time.

“They have counters at the front desk and the librarians found they really increased their footfall once we set up, so it’s had a very positive impact all round.”

With the smell of pain rustique – take your choice from plain, Mediterranean, olive or tomato – and saucy sourdoughs (beer or rosemary or caramelised onion, potato and fennel among them), a boat-full of browns and a cornucopia of croissants filling the air, who could resist?

Artisan also sells its produce at markets in Newcastle, Staithes and Jesmond, and it has learned some valuable lessons as it nurtured those outlets.

“Earth Doctors is all about collaboration – it’s an umbrella organisation for projects such as Artisan that, in turn, are based on a network of community organisations working together,” he said. “Because, quite simply, no one group can do it all themselves.

“How do you make a business viable? Well, make more products that lead to more sales, but to begin with, cut your costs by sharing resources.”

Artisan will be doing just that when they get their new bakery up and running in Wylam, throwing open the doors to other cooks and bakers.

“We can help local businesses that are based round the kitchen table at home to progress from there,” he said.

“By sharing the kitchen and basic costs, we will be helping bridge that gap between cooking at home and having a more professional setup.”

Earth Doctors already strengthens the route to market for individual businesses and, by bringing producers together, achieves the desired economies of scale not otherwise possible for individual community groups.

Besides bulk-buying high quality ingredients, such as the organic stone-ground flour Artisan and now others use, they also ensure that together, groups actually produce enough to stock a stall.

One example is Daybreak, in Acomb. It supports adults with learning disabilities and the bakery sessions there are enjoyed by one and all.

However, it had to reduce the number of weekly sessions at one point, because it simply couldn’t shift enough of its produce at a too-quiet Hexham Market.

Andy said: “We’re selling their cakes for them now at some of our markets in a collaboration that helps us both.”

In another example, Earth Doctors is working with a charity in Felling, in an area that has clocked up more than its fair share of Government indices of deprivation.

“They’re turning what was a derelict building into a community centre,” he said. “We ended up putting in a mini-bakery and going in weekly to bake with them, and now we’re helping them set up a pizzeria business too.”

The joy of that particular partnership was that the proceeds from the bread, ultimately sold from a stall in the local school, were split between the charity and the school, because Earth Doctors’ costs were covered by a business development grant from the Virgin Money Foundation.

The Artisan Baking Community rose Phoenix-like from the ashes of another baking co-operative, originally located in Gosforth.

That folded when the enthusiasm of the volunteers involved burned out, undernourished by the lack of a viable business plan.

The new Artisan kept the name, and the services of the master bakers still keen to volunteer their core skills.

They have been steadily passing those on to a new generation of bakers, among them Andy himself.

“I’m not a qualified baker in that I haven’t been through the technical training,” he said, “but after you’ve made your first 10,000 loaves – and I’ve probably made more than that – can you call yourself a baker?”

The Artisan logo is two loaves of bread positioned in the shape of a heart, he points out. They symbolised the two halves of the whole: the business side and the social side.

He said: “We work with a lot of community groups that, between them, deal with issues such as unemployment, disability and social isolation.

“And at the end of the day, that’s what all this is about – the people, not the product.

“In terms of that food chain, though, the bonus is you make local, high quality, nutritious food affordable and available to everyone.”