Frequently asked questions

I travel a lot and can be very late on answering emails. Therefore, please help me and have a look here before you contact The Bread Exchange with any questions.

What is the Bread Exchange and how does it work?

I bake bread. If you want it, I trade it with you for almost anything, just not money.

I trade for anything that could inspire me, or teach me something. I trade for anything that you do better than me, anything I haven’t tried or know before.

I am based in Berlin but trade all around the world. Ether through my own travels in the fashion business or by people showing up where I happen to be.
When a bread is ready I blog, twitter or post it to my facebook group.

I bake back to basics, simple white sourdough bread. Flour water and Salt together with my London born sourdough that I have used for the last 5 years.
Wherever I go, so does my sourdough – Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Sinai, NYC, Düsseldorf, Paris, Zürich, Kabul, Vienna, Colorado, Basel, London, Antwerp and now Stockholm.

My bartering project has turned into a small eco-system where most of the ingredients I use are trades for my bread.
Every trader has a story to tell about its choice of trade so every bread is full of stories. This is what I love the most about this project.

When did you start and how many trades have you done?

Since this project just happened, I dont really have a set date or number. But it must have taken form between 2008 and 2009.  By now I have traded between 1300 and 1400 loafs of bread.

You don’t take money for your bread. But how do you pay your gas and electric bills and can afford to travel?

I do not take money for my bread, that is correct. I get something for my bread which is way more valuable than money to me. However, you are right, I need to pay my bills and I would not say no if Gasag likes to trade my very high gas bill!

Instead I live from consulting and holding speeches. I have a business degree in Network management and Marketing and a background in positioning fashion brands in the premium segment. I am combining this with my passion for high quality products. And when doing this for a company, I do not do it for free.

I also live from storytelling. I write about my travels on my blog as well as on the German travel site Smart Travelling. I have an upcoming book.

Parts of my journeys are also made possible to trade. I often trade bread for hotel nights for example. Design Hotels is a company that supported my project since 3 years and they have made it possible for me to travel without a huge budget.

My Morocco trip last year was made possible by local hotels that contacted me offering me to stay in exchange for bread.

I want to trade with you, can I just email you and we set up a trade?

I wish it would work like this but my project has grown fast and I am still a one man show when it comes to the baking. I am unfortunately not able to trade more than 1 day a week. I then usually bake 4-8 breads. My bread takes 24 hours to make and the trading takes often a whole day. Therefore I simply do not have more time than this.

However, if you have a great idea which you feel can help my project – Email me!

I do not live in Berlin, can I still trade with you?

I do not ship my breads but a lot of times people have arranged a friend who is travelling to Berlin to pick up a loaf. I am also only able to trade in my neighborhood (mitte/pberg). Often people send a bike courier to pick up bread at my place.

I am often traveling so keep an eye on my blog to see where I am and maybe we can trade! Upcoming travel plans for 2014 are Småland, Stockholm, Nürnberg, München, NYC, California, Belgium, Copenhagen, Gothenburg.

I emailed/tweeted/facebooked you but I haven’t received a response. How do I contact you?

I try to respond to as many emails/tweets/facebook comments as possible but it’s not always. Since this is a private project (and a one man show) that has grown large really fast I am just not always able to act as if it was a business.

If you want to contact me in regards to business, please click on the contact page for further information.

You can reach me over contact(at)thebreadexchange.com

I am not on facebook and therefore I feel like I am not able to trade with you

I am actually doing less and less trades over facebook. And I will put more and more of my trades here on the blog instead. Make sure you are signed up for the newsletter and that you a receiving updates on my blog post via mail (RSS)

I follow you on facebook but for some reason I always miss out when you are posting a trade.

Facebook was a great way for me to kick off this project. However, since I do not pay for my facebook page only a small part of my followers are actually getting my post on their feed (roughly 10% sees my posts). Therefore I have decided to prioritize my blog. Make sure you follow my posts here instead and comment on the post if you like to trade.

I have traded with you and would like to do this again, maybe even regularly?

I would love to do this. But for the time being I get many more requests than I am able to bake bread for. To keep this project authentic, and not to pick out the raisins out of the cookie, I still try to stick to the “first come first serve” principle. That way more people will get to trade.

However, if you have an idea of how you can contribute to my project, or make things easier for me to continue doing this -Make a suggestion! Maybe we can find a way!

Do you also make speeches? 

Yes. In fact, this is how I pay my rent.

I want to start a BREAD EXCHANGE in my own community.

Email me at contact (at) thebreadexchange.com!

For more info about Bread Exchange visit BREAD EXCHANGE

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Please be so kind and don’t use my pictures for any commercial purpose or printed articles without asking me or the author that I link to. However, feel free to post, reblog or feature things you find here on your own site.

Still, if you take inspiration from my project, please credit me for it.

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