Bread Board Pale Ale tackles food waste and ocean pollution by using tonnes of leftover bread to make the beer and then donating profits to fund beach clean-ups around the UK
Iceland is launching Bread Board, a pale ale made using the supermarket’s surplus bread.
The beer costs just £1.80 per bottle, or three for £5.00, and is expected to make good use of three tonnes of unsold bread over the next year.
Developed exclusively by contemporary Welsh brewery, Tiny Rebel, 10p from each bottle will be donated to Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) – a grassroots movement that has grown into one of the UK’s most active and successful environmental charities. These donations will be used to fund UK beach cleans and other initiatives that champion the reduction of avoidable single use plastic consumption.
Iceland’s managing director, Richard Walker, said: “We’re thrilled to be launching Bread Board with the team at Tiny Rebel Brewery. By using surplus bread in this way, we’re helping to avoid food wastage and ensuring our resources are being used to their very best potential. The fact it tastes great too is an added bonus!”
Based in Newport, award-winning Welsh brewer, Tiny Rebel, specialises in producing eclectic ales with iconic graffiti designs. The team has been developing the beer for six months using unsold bread from local Iceland stores and Iceland’s Welsh bread supplier to craft a refreshing pale ale that has tropical fruit and citrus aromas with a refreshing hopped bite.
Brad Cummings co-founder and director at Tiny Rebel, said: “We’re delighted to have developed Bread Board with Iceland. We’re really passionate about reducing waste and we’re chuffed to be helping Iceland repurpose this bread to make beer.
“We replace some of the malt in a brew with the bread, extracting starches and breaking them down into fermentable sugars, so the bread is more than just a flavouring. It’s a really drinkable beer that shows the value and the massive potential from using alternative ingredients.”
Earlier this year, Iceland committed to become the first major retailer globally to eliminate plastic from its own label packaging within the next five years.
Richard Walker continues: “As a surfer and environmentalist myself, I’m passionate about the need to protect our oceans and beaches from the scourge of plastics, and the creation of Bread Board gives us the perfect opportunity to combine our sustainability efforts. We couldn’t have picked a charity with an ethos more aligned to ours than Surfers Against Sewage and we’re looking forward to helping them with the important work they’re doing.”
Hugo Tagholm, chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, added: “Iceland is really doing something special by developing a product that’s not only sustainable, but supports environmental initiatives to protect our oceans. The donations we receive from Bread Board will assist our team in tackling plastic pollution on the front line – on our tidelines and beaches nationwide – the focal point of the destruction to our marine life. They’ll also support initiatives which encourage consumers to reduce avoidable single use plastic consumption.”
Beyond the development of Bread Board, Iceland has been working for the last year with SugaRich – the UK’s leader in reprocessing surplus food products – turning all of its unsold bread into animal feed.
Bread Board will be available in stores nationwide and online from 16th July 2018.
Iceland is also offering an exclusive 10% discount[i] to all those working for the NHS, Police, Fire Service, Ambulance, HM Coastguard and RNLI, when they shop at one of its stores between Monday 2 July and Sunday 29 July 2018. Additionally, those who take advantage of the discount in July and use their bonus card in the same transaction, will then unlock a further 10% discount when shopping with ID between 3rd August and 2nd September.
Ends
For more information please contact:
- Iceland@webershandwick.com (0161 238 9400)
NOTES TO EDITORS
ABOUT ICELAND
Iceland is recognised as the leader in frozen food with over 900 stores in the UK. The company prides itself on being a convenient and friendly place to do the family’s weekly shop, as well as meet everyone’s daily top-up shopping needs for fresh, chilled and frozen food and groceries.
Iceland’s nationwide online shopping service was named the UK’s best in the 2016, 2017 and 2018 Which? supermarket surveys, and for 20 years Iceland has offered a unique, free home delivery service for in-store purchases.
Since 1970, Iceland has been proudly demonstrating to shoppers just how the Power of Frozen can deliver an extensive choice of high quality, great-tasting food from fine sources around the world at great value prices.
With the Power of Frozen at its heart, Iceland naturally generates low levels of food waste. The company is also known as a pioneer in removing artificial colours, flavours and non-essential preservatives from its own label products. It has ranked as one of the UK’s Best Big Companies to Work For in each of the last 12 years, and was number one in both 2012 and 2014.
In 2018 Iceland committed to becoming the first major retailer, globally, to eliminate plastic packaging from all of its own label products by the end of 2023.