Artisan bread is ..

Artisan bread is exactly what its name suggests: bread that is crafted, rather than mass produced. Baked in small batches rather than on a vast assembly line, artisan bread differs from prepackaged supermarket loaves in a number of ways. Special attention to ingredients, process, and a return to the fundamentals of the age-old bread-making tradition set artisan bread apart from soft, preservative-laden commercial breads.
But remember because artisan bread is made without chemical additives, it tends to have a much shorter shelf-life than the mass-produced prepackaged store-bought bread.