Old English has that quality where you can squint at it being a modern English speaker and it almost makes sense. "Loaf ward" sounds like a fair description, if clumsy, of somebody who guards bread.

But then "ward" is often a building or section, or, a minor under protection. Maybe "warden" keeps the meaning while being etymologically similar.

Edit: after a bit of googling it seems that ward and warden are cognates (alongside guard and others), but the former is from Old English, and the latter is a later import from French, though French speakers got it from Germanic sources.