As of: March 11, 2024, 5:31 a.m
By: Karolin Schaefer
Comments
Press
Split
A master baker and confectioner from Lake Constance no longer throws unsold goods from his bakery into the bin.
He now makes alcohol out of it.
Friedrichshafen – Around eleven million tons of food waste are disposed of in Germany every year.
Some foods are still edible even after their expiry date.
Because master baker Hannes Weber no longer wants to accept this, he and his wife Baldina Weber have come up with a particularly sustainable concept.
Hannes Weber and his wife Baldina Weber want to turn old baked goods into fine whiskey in the future.
(Symbolic image) © Unai Huizi/imago
“Crazy project”: Baker produces alcohol from old baked goods
Initially, Weber, who is the manager of several branches in Friedrichshafen, disposed of any leftover goods in the trash.
Because of the sugar content, not even animals in the EU are allowed to feed the leftover bread, reported the
Stuttgarter Zeitung
.
For the master baker this was “hard to bear”.
The leftovers from the bakery now go into a still.
The bread distillery was built in November.
“An amazing project that we are very proud of,” it said on Facebook at the time.
“Now our sustainability project can start.” 100 to 200 kilos of old baked goods are left over every day, said Weber in the
SWR
interview.
Regardless of whether it is cake, pretzels or bread, everything is now further processed.
Baker produces alcohol, electricity and fertilizer from old bread
In the future, Weber wants to produce oak barrel whiskey from the leftover bread - in five years at the latest, he told the
Stuttgarter Zeitung
.
The production of alcohol from baking leftovers is currently banned in the EU.
“But the legislative process is already underway,” the newspaper quoted a scientist from the research and teaching distillery at the University of Hohenheim as saying.
The stillage, residues from the distillation, are to be used in biogas plants to generate energy, the residues of which ultimately serve as fertilizer.
In the meantime, bioethanol is produced, which is used to make disinfectants, for example.
The 150,000 euro investment is supported by, among others, the Federal Ministry of Economics.
The University of Hohenheim is overseeing the project from a scientific perspective.
Traditional bakeries have to close again and again.
Many companies lack staff.