Keep Britain Tidy workshops will demonstrate how to use leftover bread in cooking

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

An estimated 1.2bn edible bread crusts are binned each year, new research has revealed, as one in five consumers turn their noses up at the leftover ends of loaves.

The scale of the waste – equivalent to 50m loaves of bread being thrown away in crusts alone every year – is revealed by a new campaign using chefs’ tips and recipes to show consumers how to use it to make tasty snacks and meals.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes for using up leftover bread Read more

On average, a household that avoids crusts chucks out the equivalent of a full loaf of bread every month, according to new research from North London Waste Authority (NLWA), the second largest waste disposal authority in the UK.

As the UK battles to reduce its annual £20bn food waste bill – equivalent to more than £300 per UK citizen – bread remains one of the most wasted items at all stages of the supply chain.

According to official figures, about 10m tonnes of food is wasted annually in Britain, in homes and in the commercial sector. An estimated 44% of all bread is thrown away because people do not get around to using it in time and worry it is stale.

“Many people will be familiar with reaching past the end slice of a loaf to get to the next piece” said Clyde Loakes, chair of the NLWA. “Equally, some people prefer their sandwich or morning toast without crusts. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but what’s important is that we start to shift the culture of just binning without thinking. Discarding your crusts may seem a small thing to do, but each crust adds to the huge food waste mountain which is damaging the environment and is very costly to manage.”

The NLWA has commissioned charity Keep Britain Tidy to launch a series of free “Save a Crust” workshops in north London with professional chefs demonstrating how to make snacks and meals from leftover bread. Consumers are advised to freeze crusts in a bag – to build up enough to cook with – and to make breadcrumbs with a cheese grater.

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According to the NLWA’s new national research, 36% of households throw away crusts, 13% do not eat the ends of sliced loaves and 6% reject the ends of fresh loaves. Young people are fussier about crusts, with 14% of 16- to 24-year-olds cutting their crusts off sandwiches, whereas just 2% of over-55s do so.

Elsewhere in the supply chain, leftover bread is increasingly being used to brew beer – by social enterprise Toast Ale and Adnams, who use Marks & Spencer’s leftover factory sandwich bread crusts, while the Gail’s Bakery chain makes a fresh sourdough loaf from its own unsold loaves.

Recipe: panzanella salad

(serves 5)

Ingredients

200g stale bread

2 peppers

6 tomatoes

1⁄2 cucumber

1⁄2 red onion

3 tbsp olive oil

Dressing



1⁄2 tsp garlic granules

handful basil

3 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

salt/pepper

Method

1) Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6.

2) Tear up the bread and place in a bowl.

3) Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with garlic granules.

4) Place on a baking tray and toast in the oven for 10 minutes.

5) Chop the vegetables into cubes and place in a bowl.

6) Chop the basil and add to the vegetables.

7) Add the toasted bread.

8) Drizzle with oil and vinegar, add seasoning and mix together.

9) Cover and place in the fridge for at least two hours. Garnish with the basil leaves just before serving.

Recipe: Artisan Cooks