Toast Ale raises £2m for growth

13-Dec-2022 - Last updated on 13-Dec-2022 at 10:26 GMT

Cash injection: the investment will help Toast scale its impact towards its goal of rescuing 1bn slices of surplus bread

Related tags Beer Brewery Craft beer

Social enterprise brewery Toast Ale has raised more than £2m to grow the positive impact of its business.

Investors include the Nation Geographic Society as well as Heineken International alongside sustainable business-leader Paul Polman.

All have committed to the London-based brewer’s ‘Equity for Good’ investment model, which requires shareholders to reinvest any capital gains on selling the shares into social impact businesses and funds, ensuring the value created is invested for good.

Furthermore, investors do not receive dividends and all Toast’s distributable profits go to charity.

Utilising funds

The investment will help scale the brewery’s work with bakeries to prevent bread waste. Since its conception in 2016, Toast has upcycled 2.9m slices of surplus bread, working with a small number of bakeries and sandwich manufacturers in the UK.

Funds will also be used for research and development to help more bakers to prevent waste and enable more breweries to use surplus bread, helping cut their environmental impact of their beers.

Toast Ale co-founder and chief operating officer Louisa Ziane said: “We set out with a mission to brew great beers and spread big ideas that can change the world and are proud of the positive impact we have.

“Collaborations has always been key to our strategy for achieving change and we are excited to be able to scale our work to support bakers and breweries to embrace the circular economy.”

The National Geographic Society is a proud investor in Toast, according to chief communications, marketing and brand officer Crystal Brown.

Global impact

She added: “Our impact around the world is made possible by National Geographic Explorers such as Toast Ale co-founder Tristram Stuart and we applaud Toast’s efforts to take food waste reduction to scale.

Toast will still work with Heineken as a strategic investor, concentrating on research and development, as part of the global brewer’s net zero strategy.

Heineken NV chief supply chain officer Magne Setnes said: “We have an ambition to reach net zero carbon emissions in our production by 2030 and our full value chain by 2040.

“We believe achieving these ambitions requires working in partnerships that can scale innovation and research to develop best practices.”