In a move that goes beyond the standard business mantra of reducing food waste, Local Brewing Co and Hang 10 Distillery are dedicating themselves to finding new ways to utilise old bread.   

It is estimated that up to 319,400 tonnes of food is wasted annually by the baking sector, from grain used in primary production right through to products discarded by bakeries.

This is where businesses like Hang 10 Distillery and Local Brewing Co are stepping in and finding new ways for old bread products that would otherwise be thrown away.

For Local Brewing Co this figure provided the starting point for their EcoCrumb technology, which is helping to revolutionise the brewing industry by upcycling surplus bread by first dehydrating and then milling it into a crumb that can then be used as a substitute for traditional grain that is used in brewing.

The technology, which has already seen the brewery be awarded a $400,000 Coles Nurture Fund Grant to further their research and development, has allowed Local Brewing Co to upcycle more than two tonnes of excess bread for its limited edition beer range called Surplus Series.

Local Brewing Co Group Operations Manager Josh McLeod said the range had originally focused on utilising fruit in their beers before the focus was shifted to bread.

“We had a watermelon sour and then there was a mango one. That idea of saving surplus was what we were leading with,” he said.

“We can’t save as much food wastage by adding a small amount of fruit, but we can by replacing about 10 per cent of a malt build in a beer. Beer is mostly made from grain and malt, and we can replace 10 per cent of that with this EcoCrumb product made of bread – that means we’re able to fit a loaf of bread into every case of beer.”

Some of the bread saved by Local Brewing Co

Josh said initially the process began with him personally going to bakeries with a trolley and collecting old bread from out the back, which would then be used fresh the next day at Local Brewing Co.

It’s a system that works on an individual level for smaller breweries, but Josh said Local Brewing Co wanted to maximise their impact and upscale EcoCrumb so it could be made available to more breweries around the nation. It became clear a new system had to be put in place – starting with finding a way to make the end product shelf stable.

‘We realised we needed to dehydrate all the crumb so it doesn’t go off, and then we needed to have a facility to break all the bread down at scale… so that not only can we at Local Brewing use it and be the case study brewery, but then that we can spin EcoCrumb off as a separate business and sell it as an input into other breweries for their beer-making,” he said.

“That is how we’re going to take our impact and our ability to save food waste – and our passion for saving food waste – to the largest possible level we can by establishing a new market in Australia.”

Currently EcoCrumb is being created using surplus white bread sourced from Coles, but the R&D focus is beginning to turn towards other varieties of bread, from multigrain to rye, and the other possibilities this could open up.

Josh said one option was to take multiple varieties of bread and blend them together, crumbing them down and dehydrating them and in effect creating a “Frankenstein” crumb.

“We’re starting off with white bread to figure out how that works, then once we’ve nailed that then we can try it in a different style of beer and see how that plays out. Then you would move onto the next style of bread. You don’t want to have a barrier to your ability to save waste and have it be that it can only be a certain type of bread,” he said.

“But then we can also get into the niches, and hopefully other breweries will experiment with bread themselves. We might find out that a darker rye works well with a darker style of beer. You can play with the flavour.

“That’s where we’ll see the beauty and value in it, when other breweries are using it.”

Reimagining a tipple

Hang 10 Distillery is transforming waste bread into whiskey and gin

Hang 10 Distillery co-owners, Deon Rowe and Marine Raynard, are also breaking ground when it comes to saving bread waste – but it’s not where they first started.

Their first foray into salvaging food waste and sustainability came after watching the Australian TV series War on Waste, and a second documentary based in Uganda where gin was being made from bananas.

Deon, who is also the head distiller, became curious and wondered if it was something he could replicate here in Australia.

“We started using bananas. I got them from Sydney markets – the ones that didn’t sell or were overripe – but I had a lot of problems with the process and also the fibre in the bananas, and I had a fermenter explode. It was very messy,” he said.

“Then I went back to basics and looked at what was available when they made alcohol back in the day. Then they made it from what was available around them. So I was like, ‘OK, what is available around me that I could use?’ And that was bread. I knew they made beer out of bread.

“I went into a bakery and asked what they did with their waste bread. The baker said, ‘oh we throw it out’. They threw out about three giant garbage bags of bread each day and paid a company $300 or $400 a week to dispose of this leftover bread.  I said I could use it, and that’s how the sustainability started.”

Describing the process as being more trial and error than he had experienced when working with bananas, Deon said once they had figured it out the way forward became clear.

Hang 10 Distillery initially launched gin and vodka varieties that had both been crafted using surplus bread sourced from bakeries around Sydney’s Northern Beaches, and in December 2024 announced they had also made a whisky using leftover sourdough.

Deon at work at Hang 10 Distillery

Named The Goofy Barrel, the whisky is thought to be the first of its kind.

“This whisky is about more than just great flavour, it’s about innovation and sustainability,” Deon said.

“This very small batch is so unique, in that it’s the world’s – and Australia’s – first whisky made from leftover bread.”

Deon said by thinking out-of-the-box it was possible to add value to what was essentially considered a waste product.

“You’re turning food waste into something that’s actually valuable and useful,” he said.

“I think people are more and more conscious of food waste and how they can reduce their impact. What we’re doing is a small step, but hopefully it’s starting something and that’s good.”