I'd love to know what the margin is on bread, if the milk is a lost leader with the cows being short-changed, bread must make up for it,
for a couple a bread machine is OK, but as soon as you have a bigger family difficult to get the volume.
I bake my own for the most part, although I must admit I do supplement it by buying premade at times.
I really couldn't tell you for a family, I'm a single guy so the advice I give is ultimately for one person.
I don't use a bread machine, I knead it myself and make by hand, but a decent loaf of bread is ultimately very simple and very cheap regardless.
To bake a loaf of white bread you need the following:
Strong bread flour
Yeast
A little salt
...and that is literally it!
There are ways to make it easier to make, or slightly tastier. You can add a little butter and olive oil to the process but it isn't necessary for a basic loaf.
1.5KG bag of flour = 50-60p
Yeast (six sachets) = 50p
1KG of salt = 20-30p
You'll use a tiny amount of salt per loaf, you'll use one or maybe two sachets of Yeast per loaf. You'll use 500-1000 grams of flour per loaf depending on your goal.
Break that down and think about it.
You can actually buy tubs of yeast that are technically cheaper than the sachet packs, but yeast has a shelf life once it's open to the air. So buying a big tub of the stuff while seemingly cost effective might not be unless you'll use all of it in a shortish period of time.
takes 5-10 mins to knock something good up
