SPAR Austria introduces organic beer brewed from excess bread

October 30, 2018 IN THE CATEGORY: Environment, Responsible retailing

In a move to reduce food waste, the INTERSPAR bakery in Austria, in cooperation with the Gusswerk brewery in Salzburg, recently introduced Young & Urban, a trendy organic beer brewed from excess volumes of bread.

Organic bread and grain rolls not required for retail are the basis for the naturally cloudy organic beer. Some of the barley and malt content is replaced by various organic baked goods, and the bread beer is now exclusively available in SPAR, EUROSPAR and INTERSPAR stores across the country.

“The INTERSPAR bakery is the largest craft bakery in the Austrian food trade,” said  brew master, Reinhold Barta from Gusswerk. “As such, it often produces an excess of baked goods. To reduce waste, the innovative idea was born to utilise the surplus bread to brew an amber-coloured organic bread beer.

“Brewing full-bodied bread beer is a challenge, with the salt content of the bread affecting the beer. The bread crust creates a slightly caramel note, which gives the beer its characteristic taste.”

Beer and bread share the same basic ingredients such as yeast, grains and water and even the ancient Egyptians recognised the potential of bread beer. With Young & Urban by SPAR, this old tradition is being revived and the amber-coloured trendy beer with 5.5% alcohol content is sure to generate a lot of interest.

Source: SPAR Austria

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About SPAR Austria

The origins of SPAR in Austria date back to 1954 and the current SPAR AG was created in 1970, when the original founding families joined with other regional wholesalers to form SPAR Austria AG – a 100% privately owned Austrian company.

SPAR Austria’s gross retail sales growth reached 6.7 billion euro in 2017 from 1,566 stores including 757 operated by independent retailers. SPAR Austria is the largest private training organisation for young apprentices in their market.

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