The eat local movement has well and truly taken root, and I hear that at least one supermarket is contemplating the establishment of a "wild eating" foraged food range.

Which makes it all the more perplexing that bread remains one of the most dislocated parts of our diet.

The vast majority of the wheat in commercially made bread is imported from Canada, the United States, Russia and Germany. Not only that, but the method used in commercial breadmaking, introduced in 1961 by the British Baking Industries Research Association and still used today, is as far removed from traditional slow-fermentation Scottish breadmaking as it's possible to be. Some 80 per cent of bread bought in shops and supermarkets eliminates the need for fermentation because it takes too long and contains instead a mix of additives to speed up the process, create artificial volume and prolong shelf life. These breads are thought by a growing number of people to contribute to coeliac disease and gluten intolerance.

When I first met Andrew Whitley of Bread Matters in Lamancha, West Linton, two years ago, he was hopeful - against the odds and despite the sneers of the naysayers - of re-establishing a supply of the high-quality, nutritious wheat that in the 19th century grew in abundance in the east of Scotland, was milled and baked locally, and produced bread rich in nutrients and minerals. An imperative for Whitley was to reconnect farmers, millers, bakers, public health nutritionists and consumers, and hand back control of their bread to them.

Tests on last year's first trial crops, grown with support from the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, confirmed the heritage wheat contained more nutrients and minerals than modern varieties. Whitley is soon to embark on a second trial of 13 heritage grain varieties with such wonderful names as Golden Drop, Blood Red, Red Lamoth and Shirref's Bearded Red in sites at Mungoswells in East Lothian, Craibstone Estate in Aberdeenshire and Macbiehill in the Borders. (Serendipitously, Mungoswells is where Patrick Shirref bred grains in the 19th century.)

Sowing begins next month and the potential yield from all 13 varieties is one tonne on just one site, so - all being well - there will be enough Scottish bread-quality wheat for independent bakers around the country to launch the Scotland the Bread loaf by this time next year, just in time to make it into the Year of Food and Drink 2015. Whitley's calling it a "second homecoming" of the indigenous wheat grains: when Scotland was a centre of wheat breeding of great importance, it exported them to the New World. They're now grown in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and Denmark.

The really exciting thing for Whitley is the potential for this project to be part of Horizon 2020, the biggest EU research and innovation programme ever with almost €80 billion of funding available over seven years from this year. Scottish bread-quality wheat will produce lower yields of better-quality flour that contains more iron, zinc, magnesium and calcium than mass-produced flour, but Whitley reckons the momentum is on his side, as people realise "we can't squeeze any more out of the soil".

The big challenge, though, is getting the wider public to accept the bread this wheat produces: slow fermentation sourdough isn't soft, snow-white, pre-sliced and packed in a plastic bag. Whitley insists sourdough is the breadmaking model of the future, just as it was in the past. It's the simplest method, being followed by generations of people who made it this way at home for centuries.

"All toxic elements of commercial bread can be got rid of, and we will be doing ourselves a favour in the process," he says. "If we insist on only eating light, woolly bread then we get what we ask for: loss of control over who makes our bread and what's in it. And much bellyache."