Toast Ale

IMPACT REPORT
2019

toastale.com
CONTENTS
6-7 8-9 10-11
HERE’S TO COMMITTED TO OUR KEY
CHANGE SUSTAINABLE ACHIEVEMENTS
BUSINESS IN 2019

12-13 14-15 16-17

OUR KEY RAISE A TOAST SAVE THE WORLD
PERFORMANCE
INDICATORS
IN 2019

18-19 20-21 22-23

OUR CHARITY CHEERS 2019 CARBON
PARTNERS FOOTPRINT

24-25
OUR 2020
FOCUS

Design by Feisty Frog Studio - feistyfrogstudio.com

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OUR 2019 IMPACT REPORT EXPLAINS

HOW WE’RE CREATING POSITIVE
CHANGE FOR THE PLANET, WHAT WE
ACHIEVED IN 2019 AND OUR PLANS
FOR 2020. WE HOPE YOU’LL ENJOY
READING AND JOIN US IN RAISING
A TOAST. HERE’S TO CHANGE
4
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HERE’S TO
CHANGE
We set up Toast Ale in 2015 to bring adapt will cease to exist.” At COP25
people together and create positive in December, over 500 B Corps including
change for the planet. Food production is Toast announced a commitment to
the biggest contributor to climate change Net Zero by 2030.
and biodiversity loss, but one third of food
is wasted. We want to change that. Yet all indicators about the health of the
planet are moving in the wrong direction.
But we can’t do it alone. Change starts 2019 concluded a decade of exceptional
when people come together, to be open global heat, record sea levels due to the
about our losses and the challenges we melting of the ice sheets, and increasingly
face, to celebrate our joys and successes, regular occurrences of heatwaves and
and to share our hopes and dreams for floods, with devastating tropical cyclones
the future. And what better way to put the and wildfires. This is impacting biodiversity
world to rights than over a cheeky pint. and natural ecosystems, as well as the
lives of millions of people around the world
2019 brought a groundswell of action with risk to health, livelihoods, food security,
on environmental issues. There was an water supply and human security.
uprising of climate activism that bridged
generations, from the School Strikes for We can change this trajectory by limiting
Climate which began with Greta Thunberg, global warming to 1.5°C1. We will need
chosen as Time Magazine’s 2019 person transitions in every sector, and resilient,
of the year, to David Attenborough’s connected communities to share ideas,
Climate Change: The Facts documentary find compassionate solutions and
that prompted conversations in our homes support each other through the transition.
about the stark reality of our warming Reducing food waste is one of the simplest
planet. Extinction Rebellion protests and most impactful things we can all do,
brought thousands of people onto the and we want to prove that it can be fun
streets all over the world, many of whom and delicious too. By coming together
had never before been involved in direct and taking action, we can all be optimistic
action. about the future.
Businesses and the financial community Here’s to change.
also began to shift. Business leaders
declared a Climate Emergency in April,
ahead of the UK government’s declaration
in May. The Bank of England became the
first central bank to insist lenders stress test
against climate risk and Mark Carney said
“Firms that align their business models to
the transition to a net zero world will be Louisa Ziane
rewarded handsomely. Those that fail to COO: Chief of all things 1
*The average global temperature has risen by 1.1°C since the pre-industrial period and is likely to reach 1.5°C
People, Planet and Profit between 2030 and 2052, and 3-5°C by the end of the century.

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COMMITTED TO
SUSTAINABLE VISION
A beer with more taste and

BUSINESS a world without waste.

Our business model is designed with including our financing structure. In

sustainability at its heart. Primarily, we 2018, we set up Equity For Good to
reduce demand for natural resources by bring external capital into the business.
replacing virgin barley with surplus fresh If investors sell their shares, they have
bread. One of the biggest environmental
challenges is the increasing demand for
committed to reinvest net profits into
environmentally-focussed social
MISSION
agricultural land to grow more crops for enterprises or investment funds. This
food, drink and animal feed (despite one- ensures the value created by Toast Ale To lead a brewing movement
third of food going uneaten). This is driving supports others working for positive to eliminate bread waste and
changes in land use, from forests that environmental change. fix the food system.
act as carbon sinks to intensively farmed
monocultures. We are proud to be a Certified B Corp,
part of a community of businesses that
By using less barley, we have a smaller meet the highest standards of verified
footprint on the land, reduce demand for social and environmental performance,
water and prevent carbon emissions, transparency and accountability.
whilst also preventing food waste.
We also support the UN Sustainable
Secondly we donate 100% of our Development Goals, primarily
distributable profits to charities fixing contributing to SDG 12 - Responsible
the food system. Our support for these Production & Consumption - through our
organisations helps to rebuild the food circular economy model (in particular
system for people and the planet. we support Goal 12.3: “By 2030, halve per FOUNDING
capita global food waste at the retail and
We’ve extended this systemic sustainable
approach across everything we do,
consumer levels and reduce food losses PRINCIPLES
along production and supply chains,
including post-harvest losses.”)
1. Brew great beers that engage drinkers.
2. Use surplus fresh bread to
prevent waste.
3. Raise awareness of the issue of,
and solutions to, food waste.
4. Maximise profits to reinvest in
charities fixing the food system.

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OUR KEY WE LAUNCHED THREE NEW POSITIVE

PROJECTS IN 2019:

ACHIEVEMENTS PACKAGING

IN 2019
After packaging was identified as a hotspot for the business, we conducted
analysis and concluded that aluminium cans offered environmental benefits
over glass bottles.. You can read more about this analysis on our blog. We
launched a crowdfunder to give our community the opportunity to be the first
to enjoy a can of Toast and after a successful raise, launched the cans in Tesco
and Waitrose in August.

By using surplus bread as part of the grain on the climate and ensures we’re focusing
bill, we used less water (108 m3) and
land (7.5 hectares) and avoided carbon
on making improvements that create
the most change. Read more about our
(UN)PACKAGING
emissions (11 tCO2e). Read more about carbon footprint analysis on page 11.
the positive impact of brewing with surplus The lowest impact way of enjoying beer is without any packaging, so we supply
bread on page 7. our beer in reusable steel kegs. This year we worked with Waitrose as part of their
Unpacked trial to expand awareness of beer on tap. We use tap handles made
We calculated our UK carbon footprint, with reclaimed wood from bowling alleys, and have switched to fully recyclable
including emissions in our supply chain keg badges across all our customers.
and for customers, for the first time in 2019.
This gives us a full picture of our impact

EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
We rolled out our Equity for Good model to all employees, giving everyone share
options to make the team owners in the business (19.5% of the shares in Toast
are owned by our employees). With objectives that relate to our social and
environmental impact, everyone is invested in delivering positive impact.

B CORP IMPACT ASSESSMENT.

We’ve continued to make incremental improvements to the social and environmental performance,
transparency and accountability of the business. We use the B Corp Impact Assessment framework
to measure our progress. Our latest unverified assessment scores us at 102 (compared to our initial
certification score of 81 in 2017).

17.2 21.2 31.4 30 3

GOVERNANCE WORKERS COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENT CUSTOMERS
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OUR KEY
Using surplus bread to replace virgin

Raise a Toast. barley, we reduce the demand for land

and water, and avoid emissions.

PERFORMANCE 11 tCO2e
EMISSIONS AVOIDED
108.4 m3
LESS WATER

INDICATIORS 7.5 hectares

851,000
2019 SLICES LESS LAND

SAVE THE WORLD.

Donating cash, product and our time
to charities, we support them to deliver
systemic change to fix the food system.

WE MEASURE THE
POSITIVE ENVIRONMENTAL
AND SOCIAL IMPACT OF
OUR CORE OPERATIONS
AND INTERNATIONAL
COLLABORATIONS USING
KEY PERFORMANCE
£14,269 30.5 days
INDICATORS. TO CHARITY VOLUNTEERING TO CHARITY

CHEERS.
Producing quality beers and using
positive messaging, we engage
people in conversation to take action
for the planet.

3,200
656,000 HOMEBREWS 94.2
PLANET-SAVING
PINTS OF TOAST 27 MILLION
PEOPLE
ENJOYED INDUSTRY BREWS REACHED
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RAISE A TOAST REDUCING DEMAND FOR MALT

By adopting this circular economy approach to using the by-product of another industry,
we’re able to reduce our demand for malted barley. In 2019, we displaced 24.9 tonnes of
malt by adding bread to the brew (54.9 tonnes to date).
IN 2019, WE UPCYCLED 851,388 SLICES
(32.9 TONNES) OF SURPLUS FRESH BREAD
INTO BEER. THAT’S 1,874,761 SLICES
SINCE OUR FIRST BREW.
1.2x
851,388 SLICES =
THE HEIGHT OF
EVEREST
10,812M Barley growing
in field
Dried barley
from the field
Dried barley
steeped in water
Begins to germinate
in moist air
Kilned (dried)
to become malt
And roasted
for flavour

MT. EVEREST
8,848M
In the UK, we’ve calculated that malt accounts for
25% of the carbon footprint of our beer (in the US,
it can make up on average a third of the carbon
footprint of a can of beer). However, like with most
carbon footprinting of products, this doesn’t tell the
whole story because it doesn’t include the indirect VERSUS A
impact of land use. If we were to add this into our SURPLUS LOAF
calculations, malt becomes more significant. And
we’re already using one-third less than most brewers.

11 tC02e 1,272,648
In the UK, we source surplus bread In the US and with our international EMISSIONS AVOIDED SMARTPHONE CHARGES
from the sandwich industry, working collaborations, we work with local
with partners such as Adelie Foods. bakeries to take day-old loaves that
We take the heel ends of loaves not would otherwise end up in landfill.
used for sandwiches. These would
otherwise be collected by a waste
management company and sent to
108.4 m3 6.5 YEARS
Anaerobic Digesters, where food waste WATER USE REDUCED OF A DAILY SHOWER
is broken down into biogas for fuel and
digestate for fertiliser, or sent to animal
feed. This is an inefficient use of the
resources that go into producing food -
though better than landfill.
7.5 hectares 21 people
LAND USE REDUCED FED ON A TYPICAL UK
14 DIET FOR A YEAR
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SAVE THE
WORLD
WE COMMIT TO USE ALL OUR PROFITS, OR AT LEAST 1% OF REVENUE
(WHICHEVER IS THE HIGHER), TO FURTHER OUR MISSION TO FIX THE
FOOD SYSTEM.

DIRECT CHARITABLE
CHARITABLE DONATIONS
DONATIONS  THROUGH
PARTNERSHIPS
£10,256 £4,013

We believe that business social change. We have

can be a force for good gone one step further,
if the business model is committing in our governing
designed with people, documents to donating all
planet and profit in mind. our distributable profits to
As a social enterprise, charity. This means that we
we’re just like a traditional will retain some profits to
business that aims to grow the positive impact
make a profit. But it’s what of the business, and donate
social enterprises do with the remaining profits, that
their profits that sets them would typically be paid to
apart - they must reinvest shareholders as dividends
or donate the majority of by most companies,
profits to create positive to charity.

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OUR CHARITY PARTNERS

CHARITY PARTNERS Through our 25 collaborations in 2019, we supported a wide range of

charities working to improve all aspects of the food system.

FEEDBACK STORY
Our main charity partner is Feedback. shape or colour, or who had grown excess
Feedback believes that securing nutritious, to meet changeable purchasing forecasts.
delicious food for all can and should Gleaning gives volunteers an opportunity
go hand in hand with regenerating to engage with the food system hands-on
our planet. to rescue this surplus fresh fruit and veg
and get it to good local causes. To date
They run campaigns to change negative 561 tonnes (roughly 7,000 portions) of
industry practices, raising awareness of food has been donated thanks to 3,714
diverse food system issues including the incredible volunteers.
use of edible crops for energy production,
the feeding of huge quantities of wild fish In 2019, Feedback open-sourced their
to farmed salmon and overly-cautious expertise with a digital toolkit to support
date labels that cause unnecessary community-led projects nationwide to
food waste. They also create positive go Gleaning. There are now 21 groups
solutions including paid internships in in England who can access the know-
the environmental sector for young people, how and tools to run their own Gleaning
empowering workshops and community activities.
events to champion the movement
from food consumer to food citizen, In October 2019, Feedback’s Gleaning
and public feasts using surplus food Network in Sussex joined forces with the
to create delicious, shared meals. Brighton and Hove Food Partnership
to feed the local school strikers joining
Feedback also pioneered the campaign students from around the world in taking
on ‘ugly’ fruit and veg, which led to a huge to the streets to call for action on the
global movement that has impacted the climate emergency. Using gleaned
policies of the biggest food corporations in-season corn on the cob, local apples
and the priorities of the biggest and delicious soups to replenish people,
international institutions. Billions of dollars’ the Brighton team introduced the food
worth of investment and philanthropic
money that has gone into solving the
system into the climate conversation.
VOLUNTEERING
problem, and millions of tonnes of produce Our support goes towards all of
has been saved from going to waste. Feedback’s campaigns, helping them
to drive social, political and corporate We offer Team Toast two paid days per
One aspect of this campaign is change by giving people the opportunity year to volunteer for causes that they are
Feedback’s Gleaning Network. Since to take action. We work together towards passionate about. In 2019, 30.5 days were
2012, the Gleaning Network has worked a food system that produces healthy food given to local causes. We have joined the
with farmers whose crops were rejected and protects the planet. Ethical Angel platform to help the team to
by supermarkets for being the wrong size, find and support more causes in 2020.

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CHEERS! THE DRINKERS

To the people who enjoyed over half a million pints of
Toast in the UK in 2019, including our core range and
We’re committed to producing delicious, high quality 20 unique collaboration brews. And around the world,
beers that will engage people in our broader purpose. in the US, South Africa, Brazil, Iceland, Ireland, Australia
And we want to share our knowledge and experience
with other breweries to build a movement in the brewing
656,000 and Belgium, people enjoying 150,000 pints brewed
in their country with their surplus bread.

industry. So we raise a Toast to the drinkers, the brewers PINTS OF TOAST

and the everyday changemakers enjoying a beer whilst
saving the planet.

THE BREWERS
To the inquisitive beer fans who viewed our open-
source recipe 21,000 times in 2019 (83,000 times to
date), and the 3,200 home brewers who went on to

Over 21,000
use the recipe to save approx 174,310 slices -
675,000 slices to date. This equates to reducing
emissions by 20t CO2e, and reducing demand for
land by 5 hectares and water by 69 m3.
OPEN- SOURCE RECIPE VIEWS
To the 16 new commercial brewers across the world
inspired to brew with surplus bread for the first time,
and the 11 breweries now regularly brewing planet-
saving beer. The #breadbeer hashtag is close to
trending! In 2019, approx 970,000 slices were saved
across the industry - 1.6 million to date. This equates
to reducing emissions by 48t CO2e, and reducing
demand for land by 11 hectares and water by 164 m3.

THE EVERYDAY
OUR MESSAGE REACHED
CHANGEMAKERS
9.4 million The change we need goes beyond bread (we
proved that with a surplus pumpkin beer this year),

people and beyond beer. So we’re using our platform to

encourage and celebrate every win for the planet,
and raising a Toast to everyone we’ve reached
with planet-positivity who has been inspired to
take action. In 2019, our message reached 9.4
million people through press, blogs, podcasts
and social media.

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2019 UK PRODUCING OUR BEER

To produce our beer, we use five core
ingredients: malt, bread, hops, yeast
Once packaged, the beer is delivered
to our UK customers by road (we have

CARBON and water. Malt has the highest footprint

because the process of malting is very
energy intensive. Dried barley is first
steeped in warm water then left to begin
a policy against export for environmental
reasons). Our customers will chill the
beer and then throw away the empty
packaging. The emissions associated

FOOTPRINT
to germinate in moist air for approx with transport, use and disposal at end
4-5 days. It is then kilned to dry the grain of life account for a very small proportion
and stop it growing, and finally roasted. of our footprint (under 6%).
For Toast, malt is responsible for 26% of
our total footprint. However, by replacing
a third of the grain bill with surplus fresh
Despite the positive impact we have, In 2019, we contract brewed with Wold
bread, we reduce our use of malt and
BREAK AND CRUMB
we still leave a footprint on the planet. Top Brewery in Yorkshire and operated SURPLUS BREAD
our carbon footprint is lower than it
In 2019, we calculated the carbon our office functions from Sustainable
would otherwise be.
footprint for our UK business to better Bankside’s shared workspace in
understand which parts of our operations Southwark, London. Our Scope 1 emissions Our beer is then packaged in either
are responsible for the most emissions were negligible, so we measured our full glass bottles, aluminium cans or reusable
and to focus our efforts on reducing Scope 1, 2 and 3 footprint. This includes the steel kegs. Bottles and the steel crown MASH WITH MALTED
those as far as possible. emissions associated with producing our caps are responsible for 28% of our total BARLEY AND WATER
beer, our offices and our business travel. footprint and cans for 22% of our total
We followed the Greenhouse Gas
footprint, though we only began canning
(GHG) Protocol which splits emissions We have calculated our total UK carbon
in July 2019. The carbon footprint for
into those that you are directly responsible footprint to be 92 tCO2e (or 85.7 tCO2e
aluminium in particular is very dependent BOIL WITH HOPS AND
for because you own or control the on a net basis once we factor in the
sources (Scope 1), and those that you positive impact we have by replacing
on the recycled content of the can as the FERMENT WITH YEAST
mining and processing of virgin Bauxite
are indirectly responsible for because barley with bread that would otherwise
is very energy intensive. We’ve assumed
they are a consequence of your actions be wasted).
national average recycling rates but
(Scope 2 for electricity and Scope 3 for
want to investigate this further with our PACKAGE
all other indirect emissions).
suppliers in 2020. A further 6% of our
footprint is due to the outer cases and AND ENJOY
labels for the bottles and cans.

THE WIDER
Office/Business travel Ingredients
BUSINESS
Use/Disposal

11
Transport Business travel is responsible for 11% of our

.5
carbon footprint, with flights contributing
26%

%
the most at 8%. Whilst we rarely fly, we have
a small team in the US who look after our
brewing in New York and our CEO travelled
to work with them four times in 2019. It’s
incredible how big an impact just a few
flights can have.
57.6% Our office is based at Sustainable
Bankside, where we take up a relatively
Packaging small space with a team of 10 people
and emissions are negligible.

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OUR 2020 IN 2020, WE WILL WORK

ON TWO KEY PROJECTS
FOCUS ALREADY UNDERWAY:

1
COMMITING TO GET MORE FROM
NET ZERO EVERY CRUMB.
EMISSIONS BY 2030 We are improving our brewing process to extract
as much fermentable sugar as possible from
the bread we use. As the efficiency improves,
we will be able to produce more beer from the
ingredients and resources we use, improving the
positive impact of every pint.

2
In 2019 we joined the B Corp bill across the entire brewing industry
community in committing to Net Zero
emissions by 2030 and in 2020 we will
would free up a huge amount of land
that would otherwise be converted to REMOVE PLASTIC
develop our roadmap to achieving
that. It will include some changes to our
agriculture, reducing emissions from
deforestation. It would also massively FROM PACKAGING.
business practices to reduce, as far as reduce emissions from cultivating,
possible, emissions from producing beer, processing and transporting the grain, Our bottle cases, previously shrink wrapped
packaging and transporting it, and from and from the malting process. It is this to protect the glass, will change to fully
our business travel. systemic approach that differentiates recycled and recyclable FSC compliant
Toast, and we believe the biggest cardboard boxes. With our cans, we’ve been
Our focus to achieve net zero will be positive impact we can have. using Polypropylene labels because they are
on spreading our approach to reducing filled in a wet environment and chilling causes
barley demand by using surplus fresh We will also use our platform to support condensation that would damage paper. This
bread. We have already inspired many wider policy and behaviour change, year we’ll reach a volume that makes it possible
brewers to use surplus bread and and continue to support charities to fix for us to invest in printed cans so we can say
continue to collaborate and share the food system. goodbye to labels.
our experience. Changing the grain

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HERE’S TO THE BAKERS, LETTING
NOTHING GO TO WASTE, CHANGING
THE WORLD ONE SLICE AT A TIME. TO
THE BREWERS GOING AGAINST THE
GRAIN, FERMENTING CHANGE WITH
EVERY BARREL. TO THE LANDLORDS
POURING OUR BEERS, PUTTING THE
WORLD TO RIGHTS. TO THE PUNTERS
RAISING A GLASS DOWN THE LOCAL,
SAVING THE PLANET OVER A PINT.
TO EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO
CHANGE MINDS, CHANGE THE
SYSTEM, CHANGE THE WORLD.

HERE’S TO A BEER WITH

MORE TASTE AND A
WORLD WITHOUT WASTE.

CHEERS.