• How could losses in the bakery industry be reduced and how can waste bread be recovered?
• A new partnership between UK-based Clean Food Group and Roberts Bakery answers that question.
Clean Food Group, a biotechnology company, will use a patented fermentation technology to transform the company's bread waste Roberts Bakery in oils and fats that can be successfully used as raw materials in obtaining other products.
Food waste is, as in many other sectors, a real problem in the bakery industry. Data provided by various international organizations shows that almost one million tons of bread is lost from the supply chain every year.
This level of food waste also creates a climate problem, releasing significant amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In fact, as Professor Chris Chuck, co-founder of the Clean Food Group, says for FoodNavigator, wheat, the main ingredient in most bakery products, has a significant environmental footprint due to the considerable amount of fertilizers required and the agricultural practices used in the cultivation process.
And the production of more bread than is needed in the market leads to a significant amount of waste which, following decomposition, produces a significant amount of methane gas released into the atmosphere.
As part of the partnership between the two companies, Clean Food Group aims to use and transform the waste provided by Roberts Bakery, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The revolutionary transformation of waste
"Keeping bread waste out of landfills", Professor Chuck declares, "less methane will be produced. Technology also allows us to produce more food, more efficiently, without an increase in land use. Effectively getting more edible produce per hectare of wheat grown.”
The fermentation process will turn the waste into oils and fats, which can be used as raw materials to replace other products. For example, the oil obtained in this way can be used to replace palm oil.
The Clean Food Group company representative states that the edible oils produced by the unique fermentation process are structurally and nutritionally equivalent to high oleic palm oil.
Roberts Bakery will be able to use the resulting oils and glucose syrup back into the production process, essentially reusing its own waste in fresh baked goods.
Article written by Gabriela Dan, Editor of Arta Albă
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