The original post already said she was British, you don't need to repeat it

lol, I could read it just fine the other day. I wonder if they put it behind the paywall because they were getting a bad response. Swapped it out with the archive link. https://archive.li/d516E

It's not a terminally online thing, it's quite an insider/local thing. I don't know where you're from but I live in a relative "hipster" city here in the UK and this is spot on in terms of food trends (basically rich white millennial inventions from London). I live amongst them, and also sort of associated with them a year ago. There are a lot of people, think mid to late 20s who are very attracted to the idea of specialty coffee (probably the beverage equivalence of sourdough) and sourdough toasties for their weekday lunch (I speak from empirical observation). Then for eating out, they have sourdough pizza dinner (there must be like a dozen chains and local restaurants specialising in this). "London" trends like these absolutely sell to a demographic. I think it's tasty, but way too expensive. When they do launch in other cities, they tend to be in gentrified areas and drive up the prices there. That's why there is a disdain for "middle class hipsters" because it's just a "non-mainstream" way (now actually mainstream due to its uptake by everything else generic) to flaunt your "world-culture" and signal to others that you spend your disposable income on COOL stuff, BTW.

But our journalist here (from your excerpt, I can't read this paywalled shit) is just a grumpy old fart hammering home nothing, I bet they're just bitching because it's cool for their age group to laugh at millennials for their inability to afford housing because they're buying expensive bread (which is an absurd but common view). I can't speak as a sourdough enjoyer and defender because it's not working class food financially, otherwise too much of a hassle to make at home as I don't have the time to do research, but my inference is that hipsterism (in food) as it is right now is either a trend-fetish to impress their friends and coworkers, or a disposable income sink for those thinking they can't afford a house anyway, so might as well eat posh.