How To Grow Without Losing Your Soul?

What England's best bakeries taught us about scaling craft.

After leading our annual Ireland Food Tour, Christina and I weren't quite ready to head home. Instead, we crossed over to England for a few days of sourdough research.

As we prepare to expand sourdough production at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen and reimagine the Modern Stone Age Food Lab, we wanted to learn from some of the best artisan bakers and educators in the world. Our goal wasn't simply to gather new ideas, it was to ensure that as we grow, we do so thoughtfully, intentionally, and without compromising the values that have shaped our work from the very beginning.

We arrived looking for ideas about bread.

Instead, we came home asking a much bigger question:

How do we grow without losing our soul?

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The Question That Changed Our Trip

Note the “Change can be good” sign

The question that shaped the entire trip came during our visit with Anomarel "Ano" Ogen, Executive Head Baker and Baking Strategy Director at GAIL's Bakery.

GAIL's has grown to nearly 200 neighborhood bakeries throughout London and southern England, yet it continues to emphasize naturally leavened bread, long fermentation, carefully sourced grains, and an increasing commitment to regenerative agriculture. Their philosophy recognizes that exceptional bread begins long before the baker mixes dough. It begins with healthy soil, thoughtful farming, and strong relationships between farmers, millers, and bakers.

During our conversation, Ano asked us a deceptively simple question:

At what point does craft become industry?

Like many people, I've often assumed there was a fairly clear line separating artisan food from industrial food. The more machines involved, the further away you moved from craft.

Ano challenged that assumption.

Not because he argued that machines automatically preserve craft, but because he questioned whether we sometimes focus on the wrong things. Perhaps the more important question isn't whether a machine touched the dough, but whether the essential qualities that make the bread special have been protected and whether thoughtful technology can actually help preserve those qualities.

As I reflected on his question, I realized that if you ask me what makes genuine sourdough special, my answer has very little to do with whether someone shaped the loaf by hand.

The craft begins much earlier with wild yeast and bacteria, long fermentation, careful control of temperature and hydration, and the remarkable biological transformation that develops flavor, begins breaking down gluten, reduces naturally occurring anti-nutrients, and creates a bread unlike anything made with commercial yeast.

Those are the things that cannot be rushed or replaced.

If thoughtful technology allows a bakery to preserve those essential elements while improving consistency, reducing repetitive physical strain, and making nourishing bread available to more people, perhaps the question is far more complicated than I once believed.

That question stayed with me for the rest of our trip.

Every bakery we visited became another opportunity to test the answer.

Christina, Ano and Bill at one of the 200 Gail’s Bakeries in London (July 2026)

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Learning from Bakers

Christina & Bill with Sophia of the newest Sourdough Sophia in Neal’s Dairy on opening day in London

One of our visits was with Sophia of Sourdough Sophia, where we happened to arrive on the very day they opened their newest bakery in London's Neal's Yard. It was exciting to see growth happening in real time. What began as a small microbakery around the same time we started Rise by Brianna has expanded into multiple locations, yet naturally fermented sourdough remains at the heart of everything they do.

Our conversation wasn't really about recipes.

It was about building systems, developing people, creating culture, and protecting the values that made the bakery successful in the first place.

As their business has grown, they've had to make many of the same decisions we're now facing.

Once again, Ano's question resurfaced.

Growth hadn't diminished their craft.

It had required them to become even more intentional about protecting it.

As Christina and I traveled from bakery to bakery, I realized something unexpected. Every conversation eventually drifted away from equipment and production schedules and back toward values. None of these bakers were asking, How do we make more bread?

They were asking a much harder question:

How do we make more bread without becoming a different kind of bakery?

Those are two very different questions.

Every baker we met approached the challenge a little differently, but they all shared something in common. None of them were chasing efficiency simply for efficiency's sake. Instead, they were constantly asking how to improve quality, consistency, and accessibility while protecting the things that made their bread worth baking in the first place.

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The Lesson I Didn't Expect

The biggest surprise of the trip came from somewhere completely unexpected.

Our friend Richard Tufton from Regenify had introduced us electronically to Dr. Lucy Williamson, a nutritionist, author, and passionate advocate for healthy food systems. Richard had recently met Lucy at a regenerative agriculture conference and insisted the three of us get together while we were in London. Although he wasn't able to join us for dinner himself, he strongly encouraged us to meet at a restaurant called Hawksmoor and even made the reservations. I was excited. Richard knows both London and our values exceptionally well, so if he believed Hawksmoor embodied the kind of thoughtful sourcing and regenerative philosophy we care about, I knew it was a place worth experiencing.

Bill, Christina and Lucy on our blind date at Hawksmoor - set up by our mutual friend, Richard Tufton!

A few days earlier, while we were still in Ireland, I happened to mention where we were having dinner.

"Oh..." someone replied.

"That's a chain."

Immediately, my expectations changed.

Without realizing it, I had done exactly what Ano had challenged me to reconsider.

I assumed that because Hawksmoor had grown to multiple locations, the qualities I value most, intentional sourcing, relationships with farmers, transparency, craftsmanship, and attention to ingredients must surely have been compromised.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

From the moment we sat down, it became clear that Hawksmoor had scaled without abandoning its values.

Our server spoke passionately about the farms they work with, native-breed cattle, regenerative grazing practices, long-term relationships with British producers, and their commitment to sourcing exceptional ingredients. Rather than hiding behind the convenience of being a successful restaurant group, they had doubled down on the very things that made them exceptional in the first place.

It was the perfect ending to a week spent asking where craft ends and industry begins.

Over dinner, Lucy, Christina, and I spent hours discussing regenerative agriculture not simply as a farming practice, but as a philosophy for living. We talked about healthy soils and healthy gut microbiomes, food as medicine, community resilience, and what it means to apply regenerative thinking beyond agriculture. We discussed restaurants, education, and how businesses can become forces for improving both human and environmental health.

In many ways, it felt like the very same conversation we've been trying to have through the Modern Stone Age Kitchen.

By the end of the evening we had exchanged books, shared ideas, and discovered a shared passion for creating healthier people, healthier communities, and healthier ecosystems all over an intentionally prepared meal sourced from farms that reflected those very values.

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Bringing It Home

Looking back, every stop on our trip, from GAIL's and Sourdough Sophia to Hawksmoor, was wrestling with the same question.

How do we grow without losing our soul?

By the end of the week, I realized that craft isn't defined by how many loaves a bakery makes or whether a machine touches the dough.

Our hearts and minds full on this return trip home!

Craft is defined by what a producer refuses to compromise.

If fermentation, ingredient quality, relationships with farmers, transparency, and respect for the food remain non-negotiable, then the soul of the craft remains intact, regardless of scale.

• Machines don't automatically make food industrial.

• Scale doesn't automatically diminish craftsmanship.

• Compromise does.

That lesson alone made the trip worthwhile.

But as powerful as it was, it wasn't the biggest lesson we brought home.

• The bakeries changed how I think about scaling food.

• The schools changed how I think about scaling education.

As we begin designing the next chapter of the Modern Stone Age Food Lab, I discovered that educators wrestle with exactly the same question as bakers.

How do you teach more people without losing the very thing worth teaching?

That's the story I'll share next week!