Words by Lawrence Speelman We’re all about change. By brewing planet-saving beer with surplus fresh bread and donating all of our profits to charity, we’re here to fix the food system and create a global community of change-makers. But are we actually doing anything new? I’ve gone back to my ancient roots to rediscover the origins of brewing with......
Halloween has become Britain’s third largest commercial holiday, bringing with it a frightening problem. Three in five pumpkins carved are not eaten – approx 15 million pumpkins – and many end up in landfill. This means 18,000 tonnes of food goes to waste. To raise awareness and celebrate solutions to this scary amount of food waste, we’ve teamed up with......
This is a joint business statement from the B Corp community, of which Toast Ale is a proud member, supporting the Global Climate Strike The climate crisis is an existential threat to people and the planet, with the most vulnerable populations being hit first and hardest. Our actions in the next 18 months will be critical to determining the......
Our latest post is from our brilliant intern Dora Young… The View from the Bridge I’m interning at Toast Ale BreadQuarters, near London Bridge. Occupying the lofty upper floor of Sustainable Bankside’s co-working space, Toast is three years into its global mission to tackle the food-waste crisis. Founded by Tristram Stuart in 2016, they’ve just passed the milestone of 1......
How do you (sustainably) drink your beer? The can revALEution In 2018, cans made up 25% of all craft beer sales in the UK. And according to Imbibe, 72% of all packaged beer is expected to be canned this year, compared to just 16% in 2016. Whilst cans may once have had a bad rep, breweries are shifting to canning......
Thoughts and words from Mikey Rothwell – Breadwinner and Eco Warrior This week, employee-owned Waitrose supermarket has launched a trial of packaging free products and we’re super proud to have our full range of delicious, waste-busting beers on tap! All four of our beers – Pale Ale, IPA, American Pale Ale and Lager – will be available on......
By Louisa Ziane, Toast’s Chief Brand, Culture and Sustainability Officer The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released its global assessment report today. It warns that 1 million species are threatened with extinction. People living today, as well as wildlife and future generations, are at risk unless urgent action is taken to reverse the loss of......
This year, Earth Day is all about celebrating our species – the millions of plants, insects and animals we share this planet with. It shines a light on the co-dependency’s and relationships that make up a remarkable global ecosystem which we are lucky enough to be part of. Yet this delicate ecosystem is under threat from human activity –......
Here at Toast, we’re passionate about ending food waste to help reduce the huge environmental impacts of food production. We recently won an award for our contribution to Sustainable Development Goal #12 – ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’ – showing that building a more sustainable planet is baked into everything we do. We’re so proud to announce our latest collaboration......
In our latest collaboration, we’ve reunited with Bristol-based brewery Wiper and True. We brewed with the team back in 2016, producing an Amber Ale to coincide with Bristol Beer Week. It was a huge success, selling out super quickly. This batch is twice the size of the first, at 2850L, meaning more beer for thirsty Bristolians this time round. ......
We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve picked up a major award for our contribution to sustainable development. Toast has been crowned 2018 Global SDG Award Winner for Sustainable Development Goal #12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). The Global SDG Awards is an international sustainability initiative designed to increase private sector engagement with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The......
We’ve teamed up with Oxford-based brewery Tap Social Movement for our latest collaboration brew to demonstrates the role craft beer can play in creating, empowering and uniting communities to tackle social challenges. Tap Social Movement provides work experience opportunities and tangible skills for people with criminal records, helping to rehabilitate them towards a life of successful employment. In addition to being involved......
This week we’re raising a Toast to some huge news as we welcome Co-op to our revALEution. As of Monday 4th February, you’ll be able to find our delicious Purebread Pale Ale in the craft beer aisle of 57 Co-op Food stores across Greater London. What a perfect way to say goodbye to Dry January! We’re delighted to be......
We’ve partnered with Windsor & Eton Brewery to bring you a super fresh collaboration. It’s a 4.5% Pale Ale aptly named ‘Toast and Marmalade’ because surplus bread, orange pulp and citrusy Admiral hops are included in the recipe. Windsor & Eton are one of the leading brewers in the UK, a founding member of the London Brewers’ Alliance. Along with......
Amongst a backdrop of low-this-and-that diets, stop smoking pledges and promises of better habits, January very much heralds a time of abstinence. After a month of revelry and excess, people are often looking to set a tone for the year ahead by dropping vices and changing behaviours. Alcohol is one such vice targeted by many. Following the notoriously ‘wet’......
Over 4 million Christmas dinners will be thrown away this year – that’s almost £64 million worth of food. The real cost of this waste is felt by the planet rather than our wallets, as we’re chucking away all the energy, resources and human effort that goes into making those hearty, delicious meals. And we’re needlessly binning absolutely delicious ingredients.......
We mostly like to talk about beer. And bread. And saving the planet. But there’s another special element to Toast, and that’s our people. Team Toast are incredibly passionate, hard-working and, above all, great people to share a beer with (if we do say so ourselves). You might have met us at a sampling event or talk over the past......
In the latest in a line of recent collaborations, we’ve teamed up with Leeds Brewery owner, Camerons. We’ll be launching Stottie, a German style Dunkel Hefeweizen, at The Head of Steam craft beer bar in Leeds on the 16th November. Stottie was brewed with rescued surplus bread from sandwich manufacturer Adelie Foods, which replaces one third of the malts......
On Wednesday 1st November, the team picked up Innovator of the Year at the Small British Business Awards for disrupting the brewing industry with our sustainably brewed bread beer concept; we were then named the Best Small Producer at the Quality Drinks Awards on the following evening, a reflection of the quality taste of our beers. The British Small......
Introductions & Connections The last six months have seen transformational change at Toast Ale: the global team of five has grown to 22 , we’ve brought in sizeable investment, achieved B Corp certification, listed in a wealth of new stockists, doubled our revenues, released our beer in keg formats and won more awards for our beer. The upward trajectory is a reflection......
When you walk down Essex Street, opposite the Royal Courts of Justice in London, one of the first things you see is Temple Brew House – winner of Bar of the Year at the Great British Pub Awards 2017. It’s here that the tiny Essex Street Brewery is located, with Head Brewer Vanesa producing fantastic beer for the people working......
This week heralds the start of Social Saturday, a celebration of Social Enterprises in the UK who are looking to use business to create a more equal society. The week-long series of events champions the businesses, products and people who are looking to exact change – we’re immensely proud to be included. The first Social Saturday started in 2014, launched......
We’re continuing to experiment with new flavours and beer styles in our collaborations with breweries. Our latest, with new forward-thinking brewers at Mad Squirrel, is our very first Red Ale. Aran is a Soda Bread Red Ale made with surplus bread from sandwich makers Adelie – the end slice of the loaves that they don’t use for sandwiches. Aran is a......
Brakspear is a long standing brewery in the heart of Oxfordshire. Established over 200 years ago, the beer has become famous in Henley and surrounding areas. They also have a small chain of pubs, which though modern are dedicated to keeping real ale alive in England, from the Cotswolds to Brighton. We’re delighted to have worked with Brakspears to create......
We’re excited to launch our newest collaboration Honey on Toast, an Imperial Honey Kvass brewed using local London honey and surplus bread that would otherwise have gone to waste. This beer is brewed in collaboration with Hiver, a brewery we’ve been excited to work for ages. Hiver was created by Hannah Rhodes, in 2013. She’d spent a lot of her......
Toast Thoughts: To tackle food waste you need to empower local communities. On Saturday 22 September, Team Toast travelled to Leicester to brave the cold, wet weather that firmly signalled the end of Summer. We were joined by 5,000 hungry mouths and a mountain of surplus food at Feeding the 5,000 – a celebration to raise awareness of the amount......
The summer of 2018 is proving to be a belter for delicious collabs. Our latest is a little special … it’s our first organic beer! We’ve worked with the renowned Stroud Brewery to create ‘Melba’, a Pale Ale (4.4%) named after the peach and bread-based dessert. We’ve used organic malts, and sourced organic surplus bread from local Hobbs House Bakery, who are......
Since we launched Toast in 2016, things have been moving incredibly quickly. After our prime-time launch on Jamie Oliver and Jimmy Doherty’s Friday Night Feast, we amassed a huge amount of media coverage, helping to get word out to people all over the world. We listed in Waitrose and Tesco in the summer of 2017, helping to make our award-winning......
We’ve teamed up with Stourbridge-based Craddock’s Brewery to create a new beer, named “WasteD”. It is a light golden beer, jam-packed with Citra hops and dry-hopped with Lemondrop – basically summer in a glass. Surplus bread from Adelie Foods replaces 25% of the grain bill to create this well-balanced, aromatic beer, at 5% ABV. We’re hugely excited to be working......
Our Partnership Manager, Chris, got involved with Hale Brewing earlier this year and immediately loved their set-up – the small batch brewery is inside a shipping container in Tottenham. Mark Hislop and Dan Price are the driving force behind the brews, and their beer is pretty damn delicious. So we’ve been pretty excited about this collab. Hale brewery worked with......
We met the guys at Craft Academy while we were at Craft Beer Rising earlier this year. We were super impressed by their beers and branding, and when we got chatting, we fell in love with their story. Craft Academy gives young people the chance to get involved with the beer industry, by giving them a place to learn more......
Great Taste, the world’s most coveted food awards, which celebrates the very best in food and drink, has announced the Great Taste stars of 2018. Out of over 12,600 products to be judged, Toast Ale was awarded 2-star Great Taste awards for its Purebread Pale Ale and Much Kneaded Craft Lager, and a 1-star Great Taste award for its Bloomin’......
This week, the rev-ALE-ution we started in 2016 has spread to the UK high street, with Marks and Spencer independently launching their own surplus bread beer. With 44% of bread being wasted in the UK, it’s good to see this iconic British retailer stepping up to the plate. A 2008 investigation by our founder, food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart,......
We’re delighted to share the news that Toast Ale has become the first UK beer company to become a Certified B Corp, joining a global movement of people using business as a force for good. The B Corp certification is for business what Fair Trade is to coffee – a signal of a more sustainable way of doing business. There are more than 2,400......
To celebrate International Women’s Day 2018, we wanted to introduce you to the latest Toaster: Zoe Adelman. Zoe joined Team Toast in January as our London Sales Lead and has spent the last month talking to and sharing our beer with stockists all over the capital. We asked her to tell us a little more about herself and her experience......
Woohoo, Toast has won the prestigious IGD Award for Sustainable Futures!! Last week (Tuesday, 3rd October), more than 600 senior executives gathered at the IGD Awards to raise a toast to the food and industry’s achievements over the last 12 months. Toast received the industry accolade for its use of surplus fresh bread to produce its award-winning beer. We also......
At Toast Ale, we work with established breweries to create our unique beer. There are now a lot of breweries across the UK – about 1,700 at the last count – but they’re not all running at full capacity. When they’re not brewing their own beer, either the equipment sits unused while the brewers keep a watchful eye on the......
I am super excited to become the newest Toaster. I started volunteering with Toast last year having first read about their story of brewing beer with surplus bread. I immediately knew I wanted to help and the team were brilliant at giving me roles that fitted around other commitments. Now a full-time Toaster, my first few weeks have quite literally......
This is a guest post by Tom Levitt, Chair of Fair for You charity, who won a Beko fridge-freezer as part of our recent Crowdfunder and gifted it to Hounslow Foodbox. I once won a holiday in Cuba, then found I couldn’t go. Apart from that, a fridge-freezer is the biggest prize I’ve ever won – and I mean big!......
Today is International Women’s Day so we’re celebrating the awesome women who’ve inspired us. And are us … because us ladies make up half of Team Toast. We also know that half of you reading this will be female too. Beer’s not just for boys. The World Economic Forum predicts the gender gap won’t close entirely until 2186. It’s bonkers that......
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......
The is a guest post by Sophie Andre, the founder of Elysia Catering. We met at the time of our respective launches and found we shared a love of beautiful products made with food otherwise wasted. The Elysian Fields were a blissful place where Ancient Greeks went for a happy afterlife in Greek mythology. Elysia believes our magnificent food deserves the same treatment and......
This is a guest post by Dan Kurzrock, co-founder of ReGrained ReGrained is Toast’s soulmate from across the pond, reducing waste from brewing beer by baking goods. We’re tackling food waste at the tap, while Toast are using the tap to tackle food waste. Together we’re challenging the status quo: saving the world can be simple, delicious and fun – drink your toast,......
This is a guest post by Martin Saunders, Commercial director of Wiper and True about our latest collaboration beer – Bread Pudding. All Toast Ale’s profit from the sale of this beer will go to Feedback. Picking up the phone is one of those things that we all do instinctively often without thinking about the possibilities that might occur. Often it’s someone......
Are you an experienced brewer with a good mind for business? Use your expertise to fix our broken food system! We are seeking a committed and entrepreneurial Non-Executive Director to join our social enterprise start-up and act as our ambassador and expert advisor on quality, taste and product strategy. You will be working with Tristram Stuart, our founder and our......
It’s just six months since we set up Toast Ale, and five months since our official launch with Jamie Oliver and Jimmy Doherty on Channel 4’s Friday Night Feast. The time has flown and we’ve all learnt so much – our knowledge of all things beer and bread has fermented nicely. This month, as we welcome our first new team member,......
This is a guest post by Chris Coles, Founder of Vin2o, a social enterprise which sells wine and dedicates 100% of profit to clean water projects. I’d like you to imagine you are in a shop and you want to buy a beer. You’re in the market for a high quality product, made by people passionate about their craft. On the......
This year’s German Beer Day marks 500 years since Munich’s Duke Wilhelm IV decreed the beer purity law, or Reinheitsgebot. It stipulated that beer could only be made with water, hops and malt. None of the nasty stuff that unscrupulous brewers were adding to their brews at the time. Yeast was allowed later as its importance in the fermentation process......
We are open-sourcing the recipe for Toast ale in a bid to get everyone involved in eliminating bread waste by brewing delicious beer. We want to catalyse a home-brewing community of zero-bread-waste households. If you don’t have leftover bread, try asking your local bakeries, cafes and sandwich shops if you use their end of day surplus. There are plenty out......
What comes to mind when you think of bread waste? Depending on your preference, it may be uneaten slices of soft, white pre-packaged bread or it may be crusts of artisan loaves that are too hard even for the toaster (still makes great eggy-bread with a good soak!). It all adds up over a year, and over multiple households… Bread......