Maynard Hopkins began collecting bread tags close to 20 years ago. He passed away in 2000 but daughter Kim Cameron says she’s going to continue collecting.

It took Messenger, a resident of South Side, Cape Sable Island, five weeks to count the tags in spurts this summer when she became curious as to how many there were.

A friend brought a bag of 825 tags to add to the collection when Messenger discovered at 38,800 how close she was to a round number.

The tags don’t represent the number of loaves of bread the family personally ate. Messenger always used to bake her own. She views the collection as all the more impressive for that reason.

“You have to remember that represents 40,000 loaves of bread,” she said, pointing to the multi-coloured layers in the plastic tote-box.

Cameron says she will be passing the bread tags on to her son Shane, now 26, eventually.

“He already saves some for me now and then,” she said.

Messenger says many people have suggested she contact the Guinness Book of World Records to establish a record.

“I don’t know how many bread tags we’d need,” she said.