[CaptainMarvel]

It's funny that you mention co-op and lidl.. neither of them actually have "bread fresh baked on premises including stuff like ancient grain sourdough" [0].

kwhitefoot is correct and the vast majority of bread in the UK is not what you think it is.

The bread in these two stores is mostly baked in a factory and then delivered to the store where it may be heated for a golden crust (at most). The ancient grain sourdough is (likely) just mostly wheat bread [1].

In my personal experience, I was always suspicious of the "fresh sourdough bread" at Tesco. It was far too soft to be real sourdough bread and now I think it was a straight-up lie- sorry just a marketing label.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jun/11/fou...

[1] https://www.sustainweb.org/news/dec23-lidl-sourdough-sourfau...