About

The Sourdough Guy

I’m excited to introduce myself. My name is Marius Wilken and I’m the Sourdough Guy. I own a micro-bakery in Richards Bay, Kwazulu-Natal and bake the most delicious and wholesome sourdough bread, for the love of it. Many of my customers are eager to support my bespoke bakery where I produce only the finest sourdough bread.

If you want to buy local, quality sourdough based bread, then The Sourdough Guy is the right place for you. All ingredients are locally sourced and I use only the finest stoneground flour. The only ingredients in my bread are flour, water and salt. I use Champaign Valley Stone Milled Flour, GMO-Free, unbleached and 100% Natural.

About

My Journey

About

Function Foods

Don’t feel like cooking tonight?

Function Foods offers Precooked meals, Breakfasts, Lunch on the go, Desserts, Novelty Cakes and even Gluten Free and Vegan Meals.

Click the link below to visit their shop.

About

The Economics of Happiness

Nearly all my work happens in rural Kwazulu-Natal, where, over the years I have witnessed how entrepreneurs open businesses yet never receive support from their communities. I always urge people to support a local business instead of the big corporates.

The issue is policymakers, mainstream economists, and business leaders have pushed us in the direction of ever more economic growth and development while ignoring the ecological, social, and spiritual consequences of their actions. I believe a radically different paradigm is needed. We need to focus on meeting real human and ecological needs through awakening to our deep ties to community and nature – through an ‘economics of happiness’.

I urge you to click on the link above and see what this organization is all about. We need to start making an informed decision when we shop. Do we need a product that travelled thousands of kilometres or is it possible to source it locally where we know local people have been employed and local ingredients have been sourced?

When I was a child there used to be a grocer, a bottle store, butchery, a dairy and a greengrocer. Each one existed separately, employed staff and bought locally made produce. All of this was replaced by supermarkets who minimised the staff and maximised the profits for shareholders by making sure the producers received as little as possible. These same supermarket stores now also operate bottle stores and clothes stores, yet look at the labels. They don’t buy locally. Clothes are imported from the east. I even saw irradiated garlic produced in China in my local supermarket. What is all that about? Do you mean to tell me there are no local farmers in South Africa?

With this bakery, I want to prove that local production for local consumption will not only cut down on emission/pollution not having to transport product hundreds of kilometres but it will also create local jobs while buying from local producers like Champaign Valley Stone Mill.

I want to create a quality product and bring this wonderful quality back to my community..

About

Sourdough Bread

Sourdough bread has been around for over 5 000 years and is made by the fermentation of dough using naturally occurring lactobacilli and yeast.
It uses biological leavening rather than cultivated baker’s yeast. The lactic acid produced by the lactobacilli gives it a more sour taste and improved keeping qualities. Wikipedia

Sourdough’s special flavour originates from the distinctive team of living microbes who call the bread starter home! Their variety is entirely special to the place in which the starter was created—right down to the country, town, kitchen, and baker. And it’s this uniqueness that results in loaves of this same type of bread, baked in different parts of the world, having different flavours and characteristics!

And what makes it even cooler is that these same original concoctions of microbes used in making this nutritious loaf can be passed down through generations!

It’s been a fascinating piece of culinary delight for thousands of years, so let’s take a look into what makes sourdough so intriguing, what it could mean for preserving our connections to those who came before us, and how it can be making us healthier. (Bread? Making us healthier? Yeah, stick around.)

Sourdough bread is slow food and takes at least 12 to 24 hours to produce.

About

Benefits of Sourdough

Sourdough bread’s health benefits make it an excellent and healthy choice of bread.

It’s main benefits? Sourdough bread has a low glycaemic index and can help keep your blood sugar and insulin levels lower, which can prevent insulin resistance and diabetes.

Not all bread is equal:

You make Sourdough by only using flour, water and salt, no sugar or sweeteners.

Sourdough bread bakes longer than normal bread, which means it does not require those extra preservatives to ward off mould.

Sourdough bread ferments with the help of lactobacillus cultures, probiotic bacteria that benefit your gut. Unfortunately, the cultures do not survive the baking process but in the process, lactic acid is created. Lactic acid helps decrease the level of phytic acid in bread, which in turn helps other nutrients become more readily available, digestible and absorbable.

The natural acidity of sourdough bread discourages bacteria, so it takes longer than yeasted bread to develop mould. Each loaf baked by The Sourdough Guy is based‘slow’ and given ample time to develop into the tastiest, most digestible bread. Our slow-made sourdough is particularly stable, which means it keeps especially well.

Ideally, you should store your loaf in a cotton bread bag or wrapped in a large tea towel, so that the bread can ‘breathe’. Leave your bread in a relatively cool place so it can maintain normal ambient moisture levels. Do not store your bread in the fridge.

All my bread is made by hand and I pour a great deal of love and care into each loaf. When you take your first slice of my sourdough bread, you will bite into a slice of deliciousness.