Marks & Spencer sells beer made from old bread

Publicity stunt or right-on surplus food upcycling? The UK’s retailer M&S has launched a range of beers and ales made with surplus sandwich bread.

As millions of slices of bread are wasted in Britain every day, M&S has started selling a new own-brand beer and ale range by the name “Used Our Loaf”. The beers are available for online orders from its website.

As says M&S, the beers are brewed exclusively for them by Adnams in Southwold, Suffolk, by using surplus British M&S bread. The “Used Our Loaf” beers include a triple English hop pale ale (GBP 2.50) and a raspberry fruit beer (GBP 2) in 500 ml bottles, and an Earl Grey pale ale in 330 ml cans (GBP 2). If they prove popular with customers, more beers will be rolled out using this process.

Adnams reports on its website that it brews the beers using surplus bread from the retailer’s sandwich producer, which was previously sent for animal feed. Each batch uses 700 kg of surplus bread with three times the quantity of malted barley.