Upcycling Bread to Beer with CRUST Group
Ms Angelica Wong posing her first question to students on "what is the future of food", while reiterating Singapore's food import dependence.
In line with the SG Green Plan 2030's key target of growing local and boosting our agri-food industry—30% of Singapore's nutritional needs to be produced locally and sustainably, we observe a growing crop of food tech start-ups which are repurposing food ingredients and upcycling them into functional food & beverages.
Successful home-grown CRUST Group is one such brand that is B-Corp certified (meeting the highest standards of social and environmental impact) with US$1.3 million invested in seed funding to date.
In an eye-opening sharing session by Ms Angelica Wong on 9 March 2023, General Manager of CRUST Group Singapore, she expounded on food issues at their core: food loss in every stage of the supply chain, which we as consumers are desensitised to or unaware of.
Operating within a hyperlocal model of sourcing ingredients very close to home, CRUST Group works with surplus bread sourced from over-production, such as the ready-produced bakery bread they receive from Cold Storage. They also receive surplus food waste from hotels, restaurants, bars and bakeries, which is then converted into higher-value products to be redistributed into the food supply.
Awarded in June 2022 for being one of the most innovative food companies, CRUST's confident craft is backed by strong R&D, having worked with grains, quinoa, rice, wheat, fruit and herbs for flavour. For example, in Japan, they have developed rice beer, tomato beer and even a non-alcoholic beverage using Amanatsu, a Japanese citrus fruit, mixed with honey!
About CRUST Group
We leave no CRUST behind.
Founded in 2019 and based on their belief in a circular economy, CRUST Group is a food tech startup valorising surplus ingredients into unique beverages for their food service and retail partners.
Surplus ingredients like bread and waste like fruit peels are reincarnated into unique products like: Crust, a range of sustainable, artisan beers made from surplus bread and other ingredients like coffee and tea, and Crop, a line of non-alcoholic drinks made from fruit and vegetable waste such as peels, seeds and rinds.
To date, the group has saved more than 2.5 tonnes of bread and other surplus ingredients, and produced nearly 43,000 litres of beverages in the past three years.
They aim to empower businesses in food service and retail to upcycle their food waste and loss into high-value products. Join them on their mission to reduce global food loss by 1% by 2030! #saveacrust