In food waste fight, Brits turn bread into beer

DRIFFIELD, United Kingdom: At a brewery nestled in rolling farmland in northern England, the process of making beer begins with dropping dozens of unwanted loaf ends, thrown away by a sandwich factory, into a large stainless steel tank.

Add water, hops and yeast, and out comes the unmistakable golden beverage popular the world over. “We’re essentially substituting part of the malt for bread,” says Alex Balchin, head of the Wold Top Brewery, near Driffield in Yorkshire, of the brew which has no discernible bread-like taste. The brewery uses some of the tonnes of discarded uneaten bread in Britain to produce beer in support of an initiative fighting food waste — and the idea is being exported around the world. Behind the concept of Toast Ale is Tristram Stuart, who set up Feedback, an anti-food waste organisation.

He began producing the beverage last year, drawing inspiration from a small Belgian microbrewery — Brussels Beer Project — that started making a beer from leftover bread, called “Babylone”, in 2015. “They explained to me that the ancient Babylonians actually invented beer to preserve bread and other grains that otherwise would be wasted,” says 40-year-old Stuart. “That was the original purpose of the drink.” Stuart’s research has found that “industrial quantities” of bread are being wasted globally, more than food aid charities can utilise, while the global craft beer brewing movement has continued to flourish.