Tons Of Bread’s Being Wasted Every Year, But It Can Be Given New Life As Animal Food, Ethanol, Or Even Beer
Every year, large amounts of bread are wasted, meeting their untimely ends in dumpsters instead of dinner tables.
Honestly, it’s a carb-lover’s nightmare. At most, the discarded bread is used for biogas production, but that only uses up just a fraction of the waste.
If bread waste were transformed into new food and other products, it would significantly benefit both the environment and the economy.
In a 2021 study of bread waste in Sweden—a country of more than 10 million people—researchers designed and evaluated measures to decrease bread waste, especially in large grocery stores and bakeries. When it comes to research on food waste, bread, in particular, has often been neglected.
“We have made calculations of the amount of bread waste, analyzed the reasons behind it, and suggested solutions. Then, we evaluated this in relation to potential environmental savings,” said Pedro Brancoli, the project leader from the University of Borås, Sweden.
Initially, the researchers examined food waste in general at large grocery stores to figure out which products were discarded the most and to estimate its environmental impact. They found that bread waste accounted for a huge burden on the environment.
According to Brancoli, about 80,000 tons of bread are wasted every year. Around a third of all the food that is produced in the world is wasted.
Food waste makes up six percent of our total greenhouse gas emissions. Some estimates say that bread consists of 30 percent of food waste.
The discovery came as a surprise because bread had not been considered for significant waste at retailers before.
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It resulted in a collaborative project with retailers and bread bakeries to look at bread waste at a national level.
Together, they brainstormed ways to prevent it or to recycle it as a raw material to be used for something else. This wasted bread has value, as he proved with his project.
In order to prevent bread waste, it is important to identify what risks there are and to develop effective strategies. Bread waste can be used in a number of different applications.
“At the same time, there will always be some waste in the supply chain, and the bread waste can be used as a raw material to produce ethanol, animal feed, beer, or as a substrate to grow a protein-rich fungus which can be used as food.
These alternatives have great potential to reduce the environmental impact in terms of the bread life cycle.
The findings of the study show that it is highly possible for bread to become part of the circular supply chain. However, more cooperation between companies is needed for the benefits of preventing bread waste to be seen.
Next, the researchers plan to implement the measures described in the project and to investigate food waste in other parts of Sweden and internationally.
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