Bread paste from returned bread

Returned bread is bread that is not sold by the end of the day and normally goes to the animal feed industry. Earlier this year, the Bakery Sweets Centre found a way to make a sweetened bread paste from this bread, which can be used as an ingredient for new products. The students, together with the Applied Research Group Healthy Food & Nutrition, Bakery Sweets Centre, Aeres MBO, and EBIC (European Bakery Innovation Centre), have developed a spice biscuit bar based on this bread paste from returned bread.

In the shoe or as a snack

The spice biscuit bar is not only sustainable but also very tasty. It is the ideal gift for the Sinterklaas period but also perfectly suitable as a quick snack. The students experimented with various recipes in the innovation labs within the university and chose the best variant based on consumer tests. They also considered the marketing of the product, seeing potential beyond the Sinterklaas period through consumer research.

Market potential

According to Jendo Visser, supervising lecturer in Food Technology, this spice biscuit bar is one of the first products made from returned bread with real market potential. "In the transition to more sustainable food products, this project can truly be called a breakthrough. As lecturers, we are quite proud of what these students have been able to develop in a short time on behalf of the Bakery Sweets Centre!"

New life for old bread

The spice biscuit bar is one of the results of the 'Returned Bread Paste' project, which aims to reduce bread waste in the food chain. The waste of bread is significant: in the entire Dutch chain, it amounts to about 150,000 tonnes per year. With this project, the students and their partners want to show that valuable products can be made from returned bread, contributing to a circular and sustainable chain.