TOAST and Future Food

Are you passionate about reducing food waste.  I met an inspirational guy yesterday, who is on a mission to reduce food waste one slice of bread at a time and make great beer whilst he is doing it.

This is Rob, from Toast Ale and he was one of my fellow speakers at the ‘Future Food’ conference, run by BSI.  It was quite fitting that it was in such an iconic place as the Churchill War rooms.  It is a very different kind of battle we are in today though, it is the ‘War on Food Waste’.  An inspiring presentation from Eleanor at Wrap showing how we ‘lose’ a percentage of food along the food chain, often due to ensuring we meet our exacting customer quality requirements. I understand the importance of quality standards, I have been a protector of them for a long time. As consumers we want the expected product delivered consistently, so finding a use for the product that doesn’t make the grade is a win / win situation, multiple great products for consumers without the waste.

Here are some extracts from the Toast Ale website which is a part of the call to action for using surplus bread.

‘In the UK, 44% of bread is wasted. We’re on a mission to change that by using bakery surplus bakery as a key ingredient in beer production. The bread replaces 1/3 of the malted barley typically used in brewing. It’s the starch from the grains in the bread (mostly wheat) that eventually becomes alcohol – it seems yeast loves bread just as much as us Brits!’

‘By drinking Toast, you’ve helped to prevent 1 million slices of bread from being wasted’

What is the best bit? It is a certified ‘B Corporation’ Supporting food charities.

So what am I asking of all of my ex-colleagues?  Have a look at the Toast Team  website, and see, is this a better way of dealing with the loaf at the end of the oven that doesn’t meet height, colour or shape specification or the ends of the baguette that aren’t used for the slices.  I can definitely see an opportunity here, if we can get all the commercial bakeries to work together, this could be the next best thing since collaborative basket handling, but you get beer at the end with this one!

#HeresToChange #foodwaste #bcorporation #circulareconomy  #BSI #futurefood #brightercapability