Toast Ale’s Bread-To-Beer Brewing Reduces Food Waste & Carbon Emissions

Nov 05, 2021by Olivia - F&F

Raise a toast to save the world — with Toast Ale! This UK-based brewery is on a planet-saving mission to create beer with more taste and a world without waste. Cheers to that!

Toast Ale Is Brewed With Surplus Bread To Reduce Food Waste

Food production is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, but it’s estimated that one-third of all food is wasted — that’s why Toast Ale’s planet-saving craft beer is brewed with surplus bread to reduce food waste! 

Toast Ale uses 30% less malted barley than other breweries by brewing with surplus fresh bread, and the positive benefits of doing so are astounding. To date, Toast Ale has saved 2,067,094 slices of bread from entering landfill — which, for a visual scale, is 3x the height of Mount Everest!

“In the UK, 20 million slices of bread are wasted daily. If all UK breweries used just 10% surplus bread in their grain bill, we could halve bread waste” said the Toast Ale team.

Toast Ale Emissions Land WaterToast Ale Emissions Land Water

Saving Emissions, Land & Water — One Beer At A Time 

Toast Ale is a circular economy business, which means that every aspect of the brewing process is optimised to reduce waste and emissions. Preventing food waste is the key here — that’s why Toast Ale also transforms spent grain into animal feed and spent hops into compost. Taking these extra steps to eliminate waste reduces Toast Ale’s overall carbon footprint (greenhouse gas emissions), plus land and water requirements! 

So far, Toast Ale has avoided 42 tCO2e of carbon emissions, which is the equivalent energy used to charge 15 million smartphones. Growing less barley means that Toast Ale has saved the equivalent of 27 football pitches. Plus, Toast Ale has saved more than 260,372 litres of water — which, equates to around 16 years of daily showers for one person!

Toast Ale Warburtons Crumpet BeerToast Ale Warburtons Crumpet Beer

Cheers To The Bread-To-Beer Brewing Movement! 

Toast Ale’s bread-to-beer brewing method is driving sustainable change all over the world! In just six years, Toast Ale has worked directly with 62 breweries and bakeries in 10 different countries. 

In their collaboration with popular UK bakery, Warburtons, Toast Ale creates a deliciously fresh beer using the bakery’s wonky, squished and small crumpets! Awesome idea, right? Their collaboration with UK brewery, Brewdog, uses leftover bread from the Bradgate Bakery to create Sliced Heist. Plus, they’ve inspired 53 global brewers to create their own bread-to-beer product, along with more than 84,000 home-brewers“We’re inspiring a movement. In 2020, Morrisons became the latest UK supermarket to list an own-brand bread beer, then more brewery's started to launch.

Toast Ale Rise Up BeerToast Ale Rise Up Beer

Toast Ale Is A Force For Good

People and planet are at the heart of Toast Ale. But, they’re not just empty words — Toast Ale’s business model means that all distributable profits go to charity. So far, Toast Ale has donated more than £48,498 to a range of charities that are working to fix the global food system. According to Louisa Ziane, Toast Ale’s Chief Operating Officer, “the food system is the biggest contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss — so by fixing an inefficacy in the food system, we have a really great opportunity to take action that will mitigate climate change”.

Toast Ale’s limited-edition Rise Up series directly raises awareness of environmental issues associated with food production — like degraded soil, biodiversity loss, polluted rivers, plastic-filled oceans, and deforestation. Each beverage represents a collaboration with a fellow B Corps!

Cheers to Toast Ale and their planet-saving beer! Toast Ale’s determination to fix the food system, reduce food waste and improve brewing practices all over the world is seriously impressive. We hope the bread-to-beer method becomes common practice for brewers in the future!

For more examples of sustainable innovation in the food and beverage industry, check out our Eco News category and the blogs below!

This Aussie Craft Brewery Uses Algae To Cut Emissions

‘Re’ Is Set To Become Australia’s First Zero-Waste Bar

Here’s How Scientists Are Transforming Food Scraps Into Building Materials

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