South Africa’s oldest beer brand, Castle Lager, has partnered with food activist organisation SA Harvest to launch a first-of-its-kind Bread of the Nation campaign.

The campaign involves Castle repurposing the by-product of its beer brewing process to produce bread that is high in fibre and energy and that contains protein.

Castle brand director Wendy Bedforth tells Engineering News that the brand has been on a repositioning journey in the past year and a half, focusing on communities and the good within communities.

“When we focus on the good, the good gets better. As a nation brand, we wanted to understand how we could contribute to solving some of the societal challenges facing South Africa, one of them being hunger,” she explains, adding that Castle investigated a number of ways in which its valuable spent grain – or barley and hops – by-product can be transformed.

The company ultimately decided on bread, since it is a staple food in South African households.

Castle has partnered with Uber Nutrition to mill the grain into flour, which is transported to a bakery business Health Food, based in Kya Sands, Gauteng. The bakery will bake 90 000 loaves of bread over a three-year period that Castle plans to have distributed to vulnerable communities, starting in the Johannesburg surrounds first.

SA Harvest, which will undertake the distribution of the loaves through its 200 community-based partner organisations, has agreed to distribute 30 000 loaves a year, for three years, following which the partners will evaluate the viability of sustaining the campaign further.

The Bread of the Nation campaign forms part of a broader initiative of Castle called Better World, which aims to make a positive impact in communities, as well as the brand’s Zero Waste initiative, which is aimed at advancing the brand’s circular economy principles.

SA Harvest CEO Alan Browde says more than ten-million tonnes of usable food are wasted every year, which equates to 30-billion meals. This while 20-million people experience food insecurity every day.

Just in wasted food alone, there is enough food to feed the third of the nation that is hungry, he points out.

SA Harvest “rescues” food that has not expired and is safe to eat, often from farming operations that discard visually imperfect vegetables or grains. The Bread of the Nation campaign, therefore, aligns well with the objective of the organisation, to have no good food go to landfill.

Besides, Browde adds, more food on landfill sites gives rise to more methane emissions that are damaging to the environment, which is another benefit of the Bread of the Nation campaign.

Since its establishment in 2020, SA Harvest has delivered more than 38-million meals to those who need it most, with 19-million meals having been delivered in 2022 alone.