Louisa Ziane, Toast: “We’ve brewed with 2.6 million slices of surplus bread to date."

The planet-saving beer brand that is decarbonising the industry and reducing food waste.

By no surprise really, bread is one of the most wasted foods in the UK and accounts for 900,000 tonnes of food wasted annually. That’s about 24 million slices of bread wasted every day. Shocking, right?

But fear not. Toast is reducing bread waste and decarbonising the beer industry simultaneously. Its planet-saving beer product line ‘Toast Ales’ is pioneering change in the brewing industry. Its flagship beers are brewed from surplus fresh bread from bakeries and to date has produced 2.4 million planet-saving pints! 2022 has seen even greater heights for Toast following the launch of its B2B business line ‘Toast Companion’ - a low-carbon and zero-waste ingredients service that connects brewers with surplus bread bakeries. The sky is the limit for Toast…scroll on to read our interview with co-founder and COO Louisa Ziane and beer ready to learn more about Toast’s mission.

Louisa Ziane, Co-Founder & COO © Joanne Warren Moore

1. Describe your startup in two sentences

Toast Ale brews planet-saving craft beer using surplus bakery bread that would otherwise be wasted. All profits go to charities fixing the food system.

2. What gave you the inspiration?

Reducing food waste is one of the simplest, most cost-effective and equitable solutions to tackling climate change and other environmental problems. Bread is one of the most wasted foods in the UK, with 44% never eaten. We were inspired to set up our social enterprise after visiting a brewery in Belgium that had brewed a beer using leftover loaves, themselves inspired by ancient civilisations who used the technique of fermentation to preserve grains.

3. How did you meet?

I began working with Tristam at Feedback, the environmental charity he founded, in 2015. We were approached by Jamie Oliver’s team to tell the story of food waste in the UK and we successfully pitched the idea of brewing a beer from surplus bread. With Rob advising us (in his role as head of Ashoka UK), the project became a business and Rob became our CEO.

4. What has been your greatest success to date? And your greatest challenge?

In 2021, after a very challenging couple of years navigating the business through the impact of the pandemic on the hospitality industry, our impact work was recognised with a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Sustainable Development. It was a surreal experience to come out of lockdown and into Windsor Castle to meet Prince Charles and the other winners!

5. What kind of impact is your business having and how do you measure it?

Our most direct impact is in preventing bread waste - we’ve brewed with 2.6 million slices of bread to date, avoiding emissions of 49tCO2, over 300,000 litres of water and 200,000 m2 of land. We use our profits to fund charities working on systemic problems in the food system, and have donated over £85,000 to date. We also use our branding and communications to inspire people to take action for the planet, and have reached over 13 million people through social media and millions more through press articles, TV and radio features and in-person events.

6. How has Covid affected your business?

The lockdowns cut off 65% of our customer base (the hospitality trade) and had a huge impact on revenues. We invested more in our key retail partners (Waitrose, Co-op, Ocado and Getir) and pivoted to focus on e-commerce. True to our social mission, we launched a ‘Meal Deal’ campaign to support people that needed help accessing food: funding a meal with every purchase, we raised enough to fund over 46,000 meals with our charity partners. We had to furlough many of the team, which put pressure on those remaining.

7. If you weren’t doing this, what would be your plan b?

I began my career in financial services and trained as an accountant, then worked as a sustainability consultant before setting up Toast. My passion has always been the natural world so I’d use my business skills to lead and inspire change in some way - ideally working in nature using regenerative practices.

8. When you were little what did you want to be when you grew up?

A vet or dancer.

9. What would you save in a fire?

(Assuming my family is safe!) My house plants and my favourite print by Ralph Steadman.

10. Who is your greatest influence? And why?

I’m lucky to be connected with so many inspiring people who influence my thinking, many of them great business women. I think it’s important to be curious and open to new ideas - we don’t have solutions to the biggest challenges we face, but the answer will be in all of us.

11. What is your happy track?

At the moment it’s Dancing by Kylie Minogue

12. What’s your motto?

Our motto is that if you want to change the world, you have to throw a better party than those destroying it.

13. What are you most looking forward to in 2022?

We’re opening a public space in the Autumn, a collaborative project with the coffee company Change Please. After seven years of operating from shared workspaces, it will be fantastic to have our own Bread Quarters and to be able to welcome people to enjoy our beer from our taps.