Win an Icebreaker T-Shirt and Beanie from Food Upcycling Business Citizen

Ben Bayly from Ahi and The Grounds restaurants, Mike Sutherland from Sawmill Brewery, Andrew Fearnside from Wild Wheat, along with food innovator Donald Shepherd, are reworking waste into delicious, low-impact food and drink. So we've teamed up with them to give away two packs of their merchandise.

A third of all food produced around the world is wasted every year, so Ben Bayly from Ahi and The Grounds restaurants, Mike Sutherland from Sawmill Brewery, Andrew Fearnside from Wild Wheat, and food innovator Donald Shepherd have established Citizen to focus on reworking New Zealand’s most wasted food item – bread.

 “We give food a second life in a sustainable way, says Co-Founder Ben Bayly. "We’re as serious about tackling food and resource waste as we are about good food and drink”.

They do that by rescuing surplus food and re-working it into delicious, low-impact food and drink. Particularly, rescuing fresh bread, close to its best before date, and using it as a key ingredient in its craft beers.

Citizen Co-Founder Donald Shepherd explains that every can of Citizen beer uses the fermentable starches from surplus bread – bread that would otherwise have gone to waste or to low-value stock feed. Slice by slice, it quickly adds up.

“It’s not every day you get to create a tasty craft beer and fight food waste in the process”. Mike Sutherland, Citizen Co-Founder and owner of Sawmill Brewery says.  

“Brewing with bread was a challenge. It’s taken us a few months to create Citizen’s distinct and unique flavour. We use one-quarter less virgin malted barley, which in turn saves energy, water and carbon emissions.”

As well as that, the beer brewing process produces a by-product, or mash, and Citizen has developed a specialised regraining process – turning it into a high-quality, nutritious spent-grain flour.

Andrew Fearnside from Wild Wheat Bakery uses this high protein, high fibre spent-grain flour to bake bread, completing Citizen’s ‘bread into beer into bread’ circular food system.

“We love the concept of using something that would normally go to waste to create a unique artisan bread. Citizen’s spent-grain flour is rich in protein and fibre and low in carbs, giving a delicious malty flavour to the Citizen sourdough” he says.

We can't help being impressed at the neatly circular system that also produces quality bread and beer - so we're giving away two prize packs each containing a Citizen Icebreaker merino t-shirt and beanie. 

Simply fill out the form below to be in to win.

Check out the Citizen Facebook or Instagram to stay up to date.

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