Bakery Sweets Center makes bread spread from returned bread

Every year, a lot of bread is returned. We are talking about thousands of tonnes of product. The bread is reprocessed for the cattle feed industry. But how nice would it be if the bread that was fresh on the shelves yesterday found its way back into the food chain? This is the question that Bakery Sweets Center is pondering. With result: a project around sugared breadpaste is in full swing.

During a session of the Research & Innovation working group, the following question came up: what is a project that we can tackle together? Sjoerd Jellema of Bakkerij Faber came forward. "We are working on upgrading the return flow. We are currently in the research phase. The overall objective: to reduce the 6,000 tonnes of annual bread returns by 30 per cent."

The eyes of the lecturers at the table began to sparkle. Both Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences and Mbo Life Sciences immediately signed up to turn it into student projects. And so the ball started rolling.

Tsjollyn Kuperus, lecturer in Food Technology at Mbo Life Sciences: "We are really working on something beautiful here. In Papendrecht, they have recently been looking at how we can process returned bread into a product or ingredient that is suitable for consumption. At the kick-off, we received the first samples of the sugared bread paste: a lumpy substance with the gloss and viscosity of caramel custard. It is now up to the students of Food Innovation to find applications for it". These applications include cupcakes, biscuits, ice cream and even beer.

About the project

This project is widely supported within Bakery Sweets Center. Besides Bakery Faber (initiator and supplier of the raw material), Mbo Life Sciences, Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences and various partner companies, the European Bakery Innovation Centre (EBIC) is responsible for the production of the bread paste. The project is divided into 5 phases:

1. Process
2. Application
3. Quality assurance
4. Concept
5. Business case

The project is now in phase 2. The expectation is that Bakery Sweets Center will be able to present the first applications in November. Products based on sweetened bread paste, with a 25% sugar share.

Bakerysweetcenter.nl