Travel outside of the North East and it's unlikely you'll find anything quite like a stottie.
A cornerstone of Newcastle's food culture, the heavy, stodgy bread was originally made from scraps of leftover dough baked in the coal-fired ovens of the region's terraces. And now Geordies all over the UK will be able to get their fix after a North East bakery announced its nationwide stottie delivery service.
Hailed by Hairy Biker Si King as makers of the "best stotties ever", the Big River Bakery has launched a trial of its delivery service after receiving enquiries as far as London and Scotland. The social enterprise the east end of Newcastle, Shieldfield to be exact, has become a community hub since opening in 2019 by teaching unemployed people how to bake, providing food to local food banks and homeless hostels, and even sowing wheat on Tyneside for the first time in a century to create the "Shieldfield Loaf".
