Our new Chief Toaster

Rob joined Toast Ale this month as our Chief Toaster. We asked him to share a little about himself for our blog …

I am so proud to have been advising Toast since our inception in late 2015 and extremely excited to now be taking the plunge to work full time as Toast’s Chief Toaster. There are so many exciting times ahead in 2017. We will be growing our presence throughout the UK whilst moving full steam ahead with international expansion. We also already have trial brews in the pipeline for a whole range of different beer styles.

Prior to Toast, I led a brilliant organisation called Ashoka. Ashoka supports a global network of social entrepreneurs to scale their system changing enterprises – including Toast’s founder Tristram Stuart, which is of course how I came to know about Toast.  I’m also a serial social entrepreneur myself having founded quite a number of social change organisations over the past 15 years:

• READ International: supporting education in East Africa
• Generation Change: supporting youth social action in the UK
• Undivided: a campaign to get the best possible Brexit deal for young people

I have co-authored a book with my wife Nikki about social entrepreneurs in Africa called On the Up, which we wrote on our honeymoon whilst travelling from Cape Town to Cairo (we called it our megamoon). So expect to see Toast expanding into Africa!

During my 5 years at Ashoka and my global travels I am lucky enough to have seen and supported hundreds of incredible and inspiring social enterprises and start-ups – from rats detecting landmines (shout out to the amazing Apopo) or surfing for social change (check out the awesome Isaqalo). However nothing has ever captured my attention or imagination like Toast has, and continues to do on a daily basis. Every part of Toast is win, win, win. We’re saving food that would otherwise go to waste, we’re raising awareness about food waste, we’re ploughing our profits into the amazing food waste charity Feedback and at the centre of it all is the best beer you’ll ever drink! What’s not to LOVE.

A Toast to you Rob!