Toast Ale: the brewery tackling food waste
The ethical brewers turning thousands of wasted loaves of bread into quality craft beers.
By Bryony Moore
Toast Ale’s mission is to one day put itself out of business. Making award winning beer out of discarded bread destined for landfill, it hopes to inspire bigger breweries to adopt the same ethical approach and put an end to the scandalous levels of wastage. Currently, 44% of all bread produced in the UK goes to waste, according to analysis gathered by Tesco.
The non-profit, founded in London in 2015, operates a single self-sustaining brewery in Yorkshire where it creates its full range of beers - an IPA, a pale ale and a lager - from unused bread discarded mainly by bakeries and sandwich factories.
Toast Ale claims to have saved over one million slices of bread so far, and their next goal is to reach one billion. It's a dream only achievable through further expansion of the company, possibly beyond London.
Toast Ale make beer out of discarded bread.
The founder, Tristram Stuart, also created food waste charity Feedback to which Toast donates all of its profits. Head of logistics and sales, or ‘customer kneads manager,’ Lawrence Speelman explained: “We’re more of a sustainability company that works with beer, rather than a brewer. We collaborate with other breweries, encouraging them to adopt our strategy.”
Their aim is ambitious. Speelman explained why it may be unlikely that larger companies will listen to Toast: “It would be a logistical nightmare, using bread to brew would change the taste, body and ultimately their beer that customers are used to, and I don’t think they have the incentive to do that just yet,” he says.
Head brewer Rob Wilson, described as a “the master brewer” by Speelman, created the recipes and designed the brewing process. Wilson added: “Making beer out of bread is like mixing a massive vat of porridge, which takes twice the amount of time it takes to brew normally.”
The brewers deserve credit for using bread waste in their recipe to try and eventually better the environment by decreasing the amount of food wastage that goes to landfill, but showing larger corporations that it is possible may not be enough. Toast are a small, independent company that has the time and resources to cope with less of a demand.
Despite this, ‘Team Toast’ remain intent on doing what they can to reduce food wastage and is continually expanding. “We want to keep organic and all on the same page,” Speelman added. “We all have our own needs and ambitions and the demand is growing. Our ‘bread winners’ opened new accounts and we weren’t prepared for the amount of orders that came in. We couldn’t supply enough kegs of beer.”
Toast Ale has won several ‘Great Taste Awards’ and placed in the ‘International Beer Awards,’ undeniably achieving some success since its foundation. ‘Team Toast’ manage the brand from a sustainable workspace concealed inside a Southwark warehouse. The shared workspace is occupied by several start-ups, hidden behind the tourist hot spot of The Tate Gallery.
Inside the Toast Ale brewery.
The space is buzzing with energy and enthusiasm. Members of Toast greeted me with ear-to-ear grins and cheerful introductions, apologising for the puns after having just met the ‘bread winners’, also known as the sales team.
The Toast Ale offices are a refreshing and modern working environment that seems befitting of the brand. It is quickly apparent that the team are enthused by the work they do and are devoted to the cause of their founder; the team idolise Stuart: “Team meetings are often held at Tristram’s house,” explained Speelman. “Most recently, we went there for a retreat style weekend. He lives an incredibly eco lifestyle, harvesting his food from local suppliers and there wasn’t any plastic in sight. We camped and foraged for mushrooms to cook.”
“I’ve always been a vegetarian, but I remember making haggis from the leftover meat Tristram had bought from a local farm. If Tristram is going to eat an animal, he will eat every single part of it,” says Speelman.
Much like the rest of Team Toast, Speelman joined the team after experiencing first-hand the mass amount of food waste produced in the hospitality industry: “I worked in Yo Sushi whilst at University and it was just ludicrous. We had to keep the conveyor belt full at all times, even if there weren’t any customers. But after two hours it had to be thrown away anyway.”
Click on the video to find out more about Toast Ale.
Laws stop companies giving away their food to the homeless due to the threat of illnesses caused by raw meat and fish. Enraged by the blasé attitude of his managers, Speelman was encouraged to take as much left over sushi home with him at the end of every shift: “It was a job in itself,” he recalled.
The entire team share similar stories. They genuinely seem committed to a worthwhile cause and affecting positive change in the industry, which deserves recognition. If the team were to succeed, Speelman highlights the positive impact they could achieve: ”If companies such as Carlsberg and Heineken followed in our footsteps, it would massively change our planet and carbon footprint.”
It is dubious as to whether the company itself has a sustainable future. They openly admit that their long-term ambition is to put themselves out of business: “We’re barely making a dent in the quantity of waste bread discarded in the UK at the moment, but if we are successful then one day we could simply run out of bread to brew,” Speelman explains.
“It is a pipe dream but a dream nonetheless.”
Click here for more information about Toast Ale.