Reading on bread.

Every pack of bread tells you something on the front. The back is where the facts are. If you have ever flipped a packet over, scanned the ingredient list, and quietly put it back, this guide is for you.

These are the five checks we make on any loaf, in order, and how Breadwinner’s own label answers them.

Five checks on the back of the pack

Check 1: the first ingredient

Ingredients are listed by weight, largest first. The first ingredient tells you what the bread is mostly made of. If it says “Refined Wheat Flour” or “Maida”, the bread is mostly maida, whatever the front of the pack says.

Check 2: the length of the list

Flour, water, salt and a leavening agent make bread. Some oil or sweetener is common. If a loaf lists fifteen ingredients, ask what the extra ones are for.

Check 3: emulsifiers and improvers

Codes like INS 472e (DATEM), INS 481 (SSL) and “bread improver” are used to make the crumb softer and more uniform. They are legal and widely used. We choose not to use them, and we say so plainly.

Check 4: preservatives

INS 282 (calcium propionate) slows mould, which is why some bread keeps for a couple of weeks. Bread without it goes stale in days. That is the trade, and it is why our packs say to keep the bread refrigerated and eat it within 2 days of opening.

Check 5: who made it

Indian labelling rules require packaged bread to name its manufacturer and carry an FSSAI licence number. Check the pack for both, and look the licence up on FSSAI’s FoSCoS (Food Safety Compliance System) portal.

Breadwinner against these checks: Daily Bread has six ingredients (53% sorghum flour, 33% water, and the other 14% is sourdough starter, cold pressed sunflower oil, jaggery and pink salt). No maida, no emulsifiers, no preservatives. A licensed partner bakery makes it, and our own FSSAI licence is on our licences page.

Words on the front of the pack

“Brown bread”

The colour can come from caramel colour (INS 150c) rather than from the grain. Check ingredient 1.

“Multigrain”

“7-grain” or “11-grain” does not tell you how much of each grain is in the loaf. Read the percentages, if the pack prints them.

“High protein”

Look at where the protein comes from: the grain, or added protein ingredients. The ingredient list says which.

“Sugar-free”

A little sugar in bread is common. Ours has some, as jaggery: 1 to 2% of the loaf by weight, printed on the pack.

How Breadwinner’s label compares

Check	A typical supermarket “wheat” loaf	Breadwinner
Ingredient 1	Often maida (refined wheat flour)	Sorghum (jowar) flour, in both loaves
Ingredient count	Often 10 or more	6 (Daily Bread), 7 (Quinoa Bread)
Emulsifiers	Often DATEM, SSL	None
Preservatives	Often INS 282	None
Storage	Shelf-stable for longer	Keep refrigerated at 0 to 5 °C, eat within 2 days of opening

The Breadwinner lineup

• Daily Bread: sorghum sourdough. Six ingredients. ₹58 for 250 g (MRP, the maximum retail price, inclusive of all taxes).
• Quinoa Bread: quinoa and jowar sourdough. Seven ingredients, high fibre (6.5 g per 100 g). ₹85 for 250 g.

Delivering in Bengaluru, Solapur, Pandharpur and Dharashiv. Mumbai coming soon.

“No maida bread” is a phrase many Indian families look for. Maida (refined wheat flour) is the most common first ingredient in supermarket “wheat” bread, and many parents would rather not buy it.

This article explains what no-maida bread means, how to check the claim on a pack, and how Breadwinner stays maida-free across both of our breads.

What is maida, exactly?

Maida is wheat that has had its outer layers removed. A wheat grain has three parts:

• Bran, the fibre-rich outer layer (removed in maida)
• Germ, the embryo, which holds the grain’s oil (removed in maida)
• Endosperm, the starchy middle (this is what maida is)

Maida is often bleached to make it whiter. The result is a flour that is mostly starch, with less fibre than whole wheat flour. It cooks white, soft and easy to handle, which is why bakers use it.

How “wheat bread” can contain maida

Three label names are worth reading closely:

Brown bread

The base is sometimes maida, and the colour comes from caramel colour (INS 150c). A little bran may be added. Check ingredient 1.

Wheat bread

Sometimes “wheat bread” is a maida and atta blend. By law, ingredients must be listed in descending order of weight. If maida is first, the bread is mostly maida.

Multigrain

“7-grain” and “11-grain” do not say how much of each grain is in the loaf. The multigrain mix can be a small share, and the base can still be maida. Read the percentages.

The front of the pack is marketing. The ingredient list is the legal declaration.

The Breadwinner no-maida rule

No Breadwinner loaf contains maida. Not as the first ingredient, not as the second, not anywhere. We do not blend it in for texture.

How we make a soft loaf without maida

1. Sorghum (jowar) flour. It is the only flour in Daily Bread, and the main flour in Quinoa Bread, which adds quinoa.
2. Sourdough. A starter of sorghum flour and water does the leavening.
3. Short shelf life, by design. Bread that is eaten within days does not need shelf-life chemistry.

How to verify a no-maida claim

• Check ingredient 1. If it is “Refined Wheat Flour” or “Maida”, it is not no-maida bread.
• Watch the phrasing: “wheat flour” without “whole” can mean maida. “Whole wheat flour” or “atta” is the clearer term.
• Count the ingredients, and ask what each one is for.

Breadwinner prints every ingredient on the pack, each with its percentage.

“Whole wheat” is one of the most searched bread terms in India. This article is about what it should mean on a label, and how to check a pack yourself.

Breadwinner no longer makes a whole wheat loaf. Our two breads, Daily Bread and Quinoa Bread, use sorghum (jowar) instead. We keep this article because the label-reading advice holds for any loaf.

What “whole wheat” should mean

Whole wheat means the entire grain, bran, germ and endosperm, milled together. Nothing removed, nothing bleached. This is what atta is.

How to check a “whole wheat” loaf

• Ingredient 1 is “Refined Wheat Flour” or “Maida”. The loaf is mostly maida.
• Ingredient 1 is “Wheat Flour” without “Whole”. In Indian bread labelling this often means maida.
• The percentage is missing. If the pack does not say how much whole wheat flour is in the loaf, you cannot tell how much of it there is.
• The list is long. Count the ingredients and ask what each is for.

Our Daily Bread, read the same way

In Daily Bread, sorghum flour is the only flour. It is the same one-flour idea, with a different grain. The whole list, by weight:

1. Sorghum Flour, 53%: the only flour in the loaf
2. Water, 33%
3. Sourdough Starter, 7%: sorghum flour and water, fermented
4. Cold Pressed Sunflower Oil, 4%
5. Jaggery, 2%
6. Pink Salt, 1%

That is six ingredients, printed on every Daily Bread pack with the percentages. Per 100 g the pack prints 294 kcal, 7.0 g protein, 53.4 g carbohydrate and 5.8 g fat.

What you will not find: no maida, no caramel colour, no DATEM (INS 472e), no SSL (INS 481), no calcium propionate (INS 282) and no bread improver. What you will find: a little jaggery, 2% of the loaf, listed with everything else.

Storage

Without preservatives, bread goes stale. Our packs say to keep Daily Bread refrigerated at 0 to 5 °C and eat it within 2 days of opening. See our storage guide.

Short, readable ingredient lists matter. So does the room they are handled in.

Bread is a food where hygiene is half the product. Flour attracts pests. Wet dough breeds bacteria if it sits too long. Slicing equipment, packaging surfaces, even the air in a bakery: all of it touches the final loaf. A short ingredient list made in a dirty room is not a loaf worth trusting.

This article covers what good bakery hygiene looks like, what the law asks of every bakery, and how you can check who made the bread you buy.

What FSSAI asks of every bakery

Every food business in India needs an FSSAI registration or licence, whether it makes, packs, stores, distributes or sells food. The licensing rules come with a schedule of basic hygiene and sanitary practices that licensed businesses must follow: clean premises, safe water, pest control, clean equipment, and trained, healthy food handlers.

A licence is the baseline, not a finish line. It also tells you what kind of business you are dealing with: a manufacturer’s licence covers making food, while a distributor’s or retailer’s licence covers selling it.

What good bakery hygiene looks like

1. Before production

• Food-contact surfaces cleaned and sanitised
• Mixers, dough hooks and proofing trays cleaned and dried
• Handlers wash hands and wear hair nets and clean aprons
• Temperature checks on water and ingredient storage
• Flour bins inspected for pests and contamination

2. During production

• Gloves changed between dough-handling stages
• Surfaces re-sanitised between batches
• Dough thrown away if it sits outside safe time and temperature limits
• Allergens handled with care, and declared on the label when products share a line

3. Cooling and packing

• Cooling racks kept away from raw dough
• Slicers cleaned between product runs
• Loaves packed soon after they cool
• The batch and dates printed on every pack

4. End of day

• Equipment taken apart, washed and sanitised
• Floors cleaned with food-grade detergent
• Pest-control stations checked
• Cleaning records signed and dated

How to check who made your bread

• Find “Manufactured by”. Packaged food in India has to name its manufacturer and give an address.
• Find the FSSAI licence number. It is a 14-digit number, usually next to the FSSAI logo. You can look any licence up on FSSAI’s FoSCoS portal.
• Look for “Marketed by”. Many brands sell food that another company makes. That is normal and legal. The pack should say so plainly.
• Check the dates. The dates on the pack tell you how fresh the loaf is.

For the record: Breadwinner does not run its own bakery. Licensed partner bakeries make our bread, and we hold an FSSAI licence as its marketer and distributor. The Daily Bread pack names Liora Artisan Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai, as its maker. The bakeries, their licences and our company details are on our FSSAI and licences page. For what goes into a Breadwinner loaf and how it reaches you, see our process page.

Why hygiene is a trust signal

The cleanliness of a bakery is not visible on the label. You cannot taste it directly. But you can see its consequences: in batch consistency, in how the bread keeps, and in whether it ever makes anyone sick.

The label tells you what is in the bread. The maker’s name and licence tell you who answers for how it was made. Both matter, and both belong on the pack.

Walk into an Indian supermarket and pick up a loaf labelled “Wheat Bread” or “Brown Bread”. Flip it over. Check the first ingredient. On many packs it is Refined Wheat Flour (Maida).

By law, ingredients must be listed in descending order of weight. If maida is first, it makes up the largest portion of the bread, whatever the front of the packet says.

What is maida?

Maida is wheat with the bran (the fibre) and the germ (the oil-rich embryo) removed. What is left is the endosperm, mostly starch and some protein. It is often bleached to make it white.

Atta (whole wheat flour), by contrast, keeps the entire grain, so it has more fibre than maida.

The “brown bread” question

Some “brown bread” is maida with caramel colour (INS 150c) added to make it look brown, and a little wheat bran added on top. The ingredient list tells you which kind of loaf you are holding.

Breadwinner uses no maida. Daily Bread’s flour is sorghum (jowar). Quinoa Bread’s is the same grain, with quinoa.

How to read a bread label

• Check ingredient 1. If it says “Refined Wheat Flour” or “Maida”, the bread is mostly maida, whatever the front says.
• Count the ingredients. A short list is easier to read. Daily Bread has six.
• Look up the INS codes. INS 472e (DATEM) and INS 481 (SSL) are emulsifiers. INS 282 (calcium propionate) is a preservative. Our additives guide explains each one.
• Read front-of-pack words as a starting point. “Multigrain”, “high fibre” and “natural” are claims. The ingredient list gives the facts.

What Breadwinner does instead

Our Daily Bread has six ingredients, each one you would find in a kitchen: sorghum flour (53%), water (33%), sourdough starter (7%), cold pressed sunflower oil (4%), jaggery (2%) and pink salt (1%). Every one is printed on the pack with its percentage.

Before wheat dominated Indian agriculture, millets were staple grains across the subcontinent. Bajra (pearl millet), jowar (sorghum), ragi (finger millet) and foxtail millet were everyday food. Then wheat and rice took over, and millets came to be seen as “poor people’s food”.

That view has changed. The United Nations declared 2023 the International Year of Millets, at India’s proposal. Daily Bread, a sorghum (jowar) sourdough, is our small part of that return.

Jowar and sorghum are the same grain

Jowar is the Indian name for sorghum. We have used both words on this site, and they mean one thing. We once sold a separate “Millet Bread”. It came off sale on 18 October 2026 because its label was identical to Daily Bread’s: sorghum is jowar. We no longer make it.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread is a sorghum (jowar) sourdough. Six ingredients, by weight: sorghum flour (53%), water (33%), sourdough starter (7%), cold pressed sunflower oil (4%), jaggery (2%) and pink salt (1%). No wheat on the label, no maida, no additives. Every ingredient is printed on the pack with its share.

Quinoa Bread

Quinoa Bread is a quinoa and jowar sourdough with seven ingredients, by weight: jowar flour (38%), water (35%), quinoa (15%), sourdough starter (6%), cold pressed sunflower oil (4%), jaggery (1%) and pink salt (1%).

Flavour note: sorghum bread has a nuttier, earthier flavour than wheat bread. It toasts well and goes with Indian spreads, chutneys and dal.

Who we make it for

• Anyone who wants the full ingredient list before buying: it is printed on every pack
• Families who already cook with bajra and jowar rotis
• Anyone who wants a bread made without wheat flour

Daily Bread is available now in Bengaluru, Solapur, Pandharpur and Dharashiv. Mumbai is next.

Pick up a mainstream loaf in India and you will often see a list of INS codes. These are internationally standardised numbers for food additives. Here is what the most common ones in Indian bread are, and why Breadwinner uses none of them.

The common additives

INS 472e, DATEM

Full name: Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Mono- and Diglycerides. An emulsifier that strengthens the dough and improves handling. It creates a softer, more uniform crumb.

Why it is used: to help weak flour and short fermentation times produce a consistent loaf.

INS 481, SSL

Full name: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate. Another emulsifier that makes bread softer and helps it keep its texture.

Why it is used: for the same reason, a soft and consistent crumb.

INS 282, calcium propionate

Full name: Calcium Propionate. A preservative that slows mould growth. It is what lets commercial bread keep on the shelf for longer.

Why it is used: because bread made to keep for weeks needs help to resist mould. Bread meant to be eaten within days does not.

INS 260, acetic acid

Full name: Acetic Acid (vinegar). Used as an acidity regulator to control pH and slow bacterial growth.

Bread improver

A catch-all term that can include ascorbic acid, enzymes (amylase, lipase) and oxidising agents. They speed up dough development and make the product more uniform.

The Breadwinner rule: no emulsifiers, no preservatives, no improvers. Every ingredient we use is printed on the pack with its share, so you can read it before you buy.

Nutrition values on a bread pack are printed per 100 g. A slice weighs much less, so the number on the pack is not the number in a slice. Here is how to read it.

Per 100 g, per serve and per slice

The Daily Bread pack prints values per 100 g and per 60 g serve (4.2 serves in a 250 g pack). Per 100 g: 294 kcal, 7.0 g protein, 53.4 g carbohydrate and 5.8 g fat. Per 60 g serve: 176 kcal, 4.2 g protein, 32.0 g carbohydrate and 3.5 g fat. Weigh a slice once and you can work out your own portion.

Fibre

Fibre is printed on some packs and not on others. The Daily Bread pack prints no fibre value, so we do not state one. The Quinoa Bread pack prints 6.5 g of fibre per 100 g.

This page is about reading a label, not a diet plan. If you are planning meals around a health goal, a doctor or dietitian can advise you better than a bread pack.

Fermentation is the step that turns flour and water into bread. How long it runs changes the flavour and the texture of the loaf.

What happens during fermentation

In sourdough, a starter of flour and water holds wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria. When they meet the sugars in flour, they produce:

• Carbon dioxide, which makes the dough rise
• Ethanol, which evaporates during baking but adds to flavour
• Organic acids, lactic and acetic, which give sourdough its tang
• Enzymes, which break down starches and proteins and change the texture

Fast and slow fermentation

A quick fermentation relies on more yeast and, often, improvers to get the dough ready. A slow one takes hours and lets the lactic acid bacteria work alongside the yeast. The flavours that result are different, and a quick rise cannot copy them.

What this means for Breadwinner bread: it has no dough conditioners and no improvers. Daily Bread’s label lists six ingredients (sorghum flour, water, sourdough starter, cold pressed sunflower oil, jaggery, pink salt) and nothing else.

Breadwinner bread does not contain INS 282 (calcium propionate) or any other preservative. That means it will not last two weeks on a shelf like some industrial bread. That is by design, and it means storing it the way the pack says.

In the fridge, as the pack says

Keep the loaf refrigerated at 0 to 5 °C. Once you open the pack, eat it within 2 days. Do not eat it if the pack is puffed up or the seal is broken.

Freezing, to keep it longer

If you will not finish the loaf within 2 days of opening, freeze it:

• Slice the loaf before freezing, so you can take out exactly what you need
• Place the slices in a freezer-safe bag, pressing out the excess air
• Toast directly from frozen: 2 to 3 minutes in a toaster brings a slice back to fresh
• For unsliced portions, wrap tightly in cling film, then foil

Tip: if you order more than you will eat in 2 days, slice and freeze the rest on the day it arrives. Toast on demand.

Day-old bread

If a slice has gone stale (but is not mouldy), run the outside quickly under water and bake it at 180 °C for 5 to 8 minutes. The steam softens it again. If you see mould, or are in any doubt, do not eat it.