Toast Companion™ - a circular additive from surplus bread

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Social enterprise brewery Toast Ale is building a research and development facility to convert surplus bakery bread into a low cost, environmentally positive ingredient for beer production and the wider food industry.Since Toast launched in 2016, the business has brewed with 2.5 million slices of bread that would have otherwise gone to waste. Their award-winning beer is sold nationally in Waitrose, Coop, and Ocado.By investing in the processing of surplus bread for brewing, it will increase the amount of bread it can rescue and improve the efficiency with which it can be turned into beer.This will reduce more food waste, a significant contributor to climate change and driver of land use change, reduce food costs and improve food security. Bread is one of the most wasted foods in the UK (44% of UK bread is wasted).This will also reduce the demand for malted barley, which accounts for approximately 30% of the environmental footprint of a beer.It will also create an additional revenue stream for bakeries whilst reducing their cost of waste, improving margins.With the Innovate UK grant, Toast's knowledge and expertise in small-scale brewing with bread will now be taken to an industrial scale with further innovation to wider applications beyond the brewing industry.