BurgerFuel, in collaboration with Citizen Collective, are launching their first craft beer, LagerFuel and LagerFuel light, made from rescued surplus bread.
October marks 27 years in the burger business for Kiwi brand, BurgerFuel, and they’re launching a limited-run craft beer collaboration to celebrate. This month, beer lovers can purchase LagerFuel and LagerFuel Light, exclusively through citizen.co.nz/lagerfuel, while stocks last.
Bread is one of New Zealand’s most wasted food products, with over 29 million loaves going to waste in New Zealand every year domestically*, and that doesn’t account for unsold bread from supermarkets and shops. Therefore, BurgerFuel have teamed up with Citizen, the innovators behind an award-winning circular solution to ‘rescue & upcycle’ unsold fresh supermarket bread, to create a craft beer designed to address needless food waste.
LagerFuel and LagerFuel Light is brewed in partnership with the country’s only B Corp brewery, Sawmill Brewery, and uses the fermented sugars of wasted supermarket bread in the brewing process. The result is a crisp, refreshing lager that rescues one slice of bread per can.
The ultimate long-term goal, to utilise the high-quality, nutritious spent-grain flour by-product from the LagerFuel and LagerFuel Light brewing process and upcycle that grain to bake into future BurgerFuel wholemeal buns.
The spent-grain flour buns have been tried, tested, and given the seal of approval by Food & Menu Development Manager, Chris Mills.
“A lot of work has gone into the development of our buns over the years”, says Chris, “There’s no added sugar in our recipe, that sweetness is achieved with pumpkin and potato flour. And by incorporating the spent grain, we can reduce the amount of refined white flour required in each bun by 4%, which enhances the flavour, but also with the added environmental benefit”.
Head of Brand and Marketing, Nikki Soons, says the launch is the first phase of a longer-term vision, “We’re hoping that people will love the beer, resonate with the purpose, and help us sell through our first batch, meaning there’s a real potential for selling into liquor retail and supermarkets. Then we could see, not only a great tasting, positive impact craft beer on shelf, but spent grain flour BurgerFuel buns on the 2023 menu, completing the circularity objective of the initiative”.
LagerFuel and LagerFuel Light will be available to purchase nationwide and exclusively online at Citizen.co.nz/lagerfuel, also in-store at BurgerFuel Napier from Wednesday 5 October.
belinda.smith@burgerfuel.co.nz
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