About

Francis Bread is a bread and pastry focused bakery located on Salt Spring Island, BC. We respectfully acknowledge that we live and work within the ancestral and unceded traditional territory of the Hul’qumi’num and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples. We bake naturally leavened bread in a wood fired oven using BC grown organic grains. We sell our bread at our summer pop up at The Jam Factory at 319 Upper Ganges Road as well as the Salt Spring Tuesday Market.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Is your bread sourdough?

Yes! Naturally leavened is another term for sourdough. Our breads are fermented in the natural way and any type of "sour"or fermented type of flavour comes only from the natural fermentation process

Is your bread vegan?

Mostly yes! All of our breads contain a base of salt, water, flour and leaven with the exception of our brioche bread and the occasional loaf we add cheese to. 

Why aren't you open more days?

We are committed to being a sustainable business both for the environment and for ourselves and our staff. We use a wood fired oven because we believe that this old tradition is a sustainable way to produce wonderful results. However we still burn a lot of wood in a year and we don't want to burn more than is necessary. It takes just as much wood energy to bake 10 loaves as it does to bake 100 so it makes more sense for us to maximize our bakes and use that energy to its full capacity. After a few years of trial and error we believe our three days per week schedule produces the right amount of bread to feed our community without wasting precious wood energy. This schedule also means that we work five full days a week in the bakery. This allows us a day off to rest (and sleep past 3am) and a day to catch up on the administrative duties of running a small business. 

Where do you source your ingredients?

All of our whole grains are grown organically in British Columbia and milled fresh every few weeks in Cowichan Bay by True Grain

We use a high quality, high milk fat, grass fed butter from New Zealand. We have tried to source a Canadian butter of the same quality but have yet to find it. 

All of our sifted organic all purpose grain comes from Saskatchewan

We use organic BC milk, cream and yogurt. Local island goat's cheese, organic aged cheddar from Quebec.

For our lunch offerings we source produce from local island farms, pasture raised meats from Salt Spring or Vancouver Island, cured meats from a five generation charcuterie producer in the lower mainland.