01920 822 220
Fresh Tracks

Facilitating Adventurous Conversations

  • 01920 822 220

Posts from:

Breaking bread: A baking team building activity

Are you looking for a corporate away day that goes beyond the usual personality tests and escape rooms?

Check out Breaking Bread – our hands-on baking team building experience. We pair the art of making bread from scratch with expert business facilitation to help your team connect, communicate, and navigate challenges together. The analogy of flour, water, salt and yeast transforming into bread provokes insightful conversations about team development.

The Fresh Tracks difference: More than just a cooking class

Most cooking team building activities focus solely on following a recipe. While you will absolutely learn how to mix, knead and knock back dough, our core focus is on what happens while the dough proves.

During the natural downtimes of the baking process, our experienced business facilitators step in. We use this time for structured discussions on topics such as transformational change, resilience and team development.

By the time you sit down to break bread together, your team won’t just have a warm loaf to share; they will have fresh insights into how they collaborate, communicate, and solve problems.

Key details & logistics

  • Bread making is a tactile, physical process, requiring accuracy, energy and patience.
  • The process incorporates the intense activity of kneading alongside periods of rest while the dough proves
  • While the dough proves we facilitate group discussions on team work and change
  • Suits groups from 6 to 12
  • Typically a 3 hour activity, with the option to extend
  • Our equipment is portable and so the activity can take place in a meeting room or outdoors, for example, in our Hertfordshire Farmhouse

The business benefits of baking together

By stepping out of the office and into the kitchen, your team will return to work having developed: 

  • Enhanced cross-functional communication: Breaking down silos through shared tasks
  • Adaptability and resilience: Learning to pivot when things don’t go exactly to plan – a common occurrence in both baking and business
  • Stronger team dynamics: A deeper understanding of individual working styles and how they complement each other

What to expect: A sample format

Every Breaking Bread event is customised to your specific business goals. Here is an example of what to expect in a standard half-day activity:

10.00 am – We kick off with a warm welcome and our ‘What’s my loaf?’ icebreaker in which participants select their favourite bread style and say why it resonates. For example ‘French Baguettes remind me of childhood holidays.’ Teams are briefed on the recipes, the goals for the day, and how we will work together in the kitchen

10.30 am – Teams dive into the first stages of baking, focusing on collaboration and dividing tasks to mix and knead their dough

11.00 – While the dough proves, our expert facilitators explore parallels between the kitchen and the workplace

11.30 am – The dough is ‘knocked back’ and allowed to rest before baking

12.30 pm – Warm fresh loaves are removed from the oven, and your team sits down to enjoy their lunch

Adrenaline Activities

Our Adrenaline Activities are adaptable to your group, timescale and location. We will create a programme to fit your needs for half, full-day or more.

All of our kit is mobile and most of the activities can be run at outdoor venues all over the country. The day offers the chance to try new things, get to know each other, discover hidden talents and have fun together. See the list below, or call us to find out how we can help you put on a great day.

The activities can be competitive or informal – as part of a celebration with a picnic or barbecue – or run as a series of team challenges with a winning team (and prizes for outstanding contributions!) at the end of the day.

Key Points

  • Powerful reward.
  • Appeals to all ages and fitness levels.
  • Suits groups from 20 to 200.
  • Can be sited in hotel grounds, farms or parks.
  • Guaranteed to unlock laughter and make memories.

Activities

  • Human table football
  • Radio-controlled drones
  • Quad bikes
  • Off-road driving
  • Blindfolded driving
  • Segway riding
  • Finesse driving
  • Archery & crossbow target shooting
  • Clay pigeon shooting
  • Rock climbing and abseiling
  • Falconry
  • Assault course
  • It’s a Knockout Challenges
  • Giant Scalextric

Body Percussion / Beats Working

Get out of the office and into the groove with a high-energy drum or music workshop.

Our coaches will boost the confidence and creativity of your team and get everyone working together to produce an original piece of music within a tight timeframe. Sessions can be themed using African drums, rainbow boomwhackers or a samba fiesta. A great buzz is created from the final performance which demonstrates the power of the large group working together.

This event can literally be run anywhere, indoors or outdoors, and is a great and subtle way of getting large teams to work together and achieve a shared sense of success. It can also be tailored to your theme or outcomes.

Key Points

  • Injects energy into a meeting or conference
  • Encourages movement, thereby circulating blood to the brain to aid concentration
  • Demonstrates the power of people working together
  • Instils a sense of excitement
  • Boosts confidence
  • Led by former performers from ‘Stomp’ the musical

Activities

  • Demonstration and tuition
  • Scavenging for items which can become instruments
  • Composition and performance

Sample Format

From a private workshop to a conference for hundreds of people, our body percussion event can be run in many different ways or included in one of our full-day team building programmes. To give you an idea of what is included please see our sample format below:

9.00 – Welcome
Conference hosts welcomes delegates and introduces our Body Percussionist.

9.15 – Intro Performance
Body Percussionist performs a musical piece without instruments!

9.20 – Demonstration and Tuition
Delegates are introduced to a series of hand claps, foot stamps and more.

9.30 – Performance
Led by our Body Percussionist the room is divided into sections, each section stamps or taps a different rhythm conducted from the front to create a thunderous symphony.

9.45 – Your conference begins.

This activity can be reduced to as little as 15 minute or extended to fill a half day.

Sailing on the Solent

Placing your team in a challenging and unfamiliar environment helps to demonstrate the benefits of teamwork under pressure. Teams receive training in specific sailing skills on racing yachts or a traditional 70ft gaff ketch. Precise teamwork is needed for the boats to be sailed successfully. Additional challenges, followed by group feedback and evaluation, will help your team get the most from their time on the water.

Activities

Land based and sailing challenges including: Tacking the yacht, retrieve a dinghy, draw up and implement plan to hoist sails, moor alongside a buoy, evacuate a casualty from below deck.

Share this blog

subscribe to our RSS Feeds

Subscribe

Be among the first to get our blog posts direct to your email inbox or delivered via your RSS feed reader

Event finder question mark

Can't find what you want?

Use our Event Finder to find an event to suit your specific needs

Choose category

Browse the archives