Do you find yourself tossing away the crusts of your bread? You’re not alone, but the scale of bread waste is staggering. Around 10% of the 185 million tonnes of bread baked worldwide each year is wasted. While some of this waste occurs at home, much of it comes from supermarkets and commercial bakers.
Although much of this surplus bread is still safe to eat, it cannot be sold and often ends up in the bin. But our recent research suggests these crusts could be turned into new kinds of foods, by using fungal fermentation. This is a method used to produce traditional Asian foods for millennia.
Wheat is one of the world’s most consumed crops, accounting for 20% of the calories and proteins in our diets. It’s a vital ingredient in staple foods like bread, cakes, biscuits, cookies and crackers. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, about 760 million tonnes of wheat flour are produced globally each year, much of which is used to bake bread.
