A New Cookie with Sustainability in Mind and Practice

Environmental & Science Education, STEM, Sustainability, Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, Society

Ed Hessler

There is an informal National Cookie Day (December 4). The website notes that "the English word 'cookie' is derived from the Dutch word koekie, meaning 'little cake.'"

Another "little cake" is soon  to be added to the long list of cookies. Re-Toast is its name and is a cookie "in the shape of miniature toast (and appearance) that's made with 30 percent ingredients from waste products." (added) It will come in three flavors--cinnamon, mocha and pumpkin spice. The ingredients are not considered "recycled" but "upcycled" according to a report about its development from the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS), University of Minnesota.

The ingredients include bread scraps, brewers spent grain and Kernza flour (trademark name for the grain; it is a perennial grass) and will be packaged in "reusable and recyclable packaging made from tin and food-grade paper wraps. Re-Toast was developed by four graduate students in food science and nutrition.

The product won first place at the American Society of Baking Product Development Competition. Radhika Bharathi was the team lead and said this about the competition and what led them to the recipe. 

“'The theme for this year's product development competition was "sustainability—caring for our future" and when we talk about building sustainable food systems, we have to talk about food waste! About 40 percent of all food produced in the U.S. gets wasted and bread is the most consumed and also the most wasted food, so why not give the bread a second chance? That is why we decided to think of a solution to using this leftover edible bread as an upcycled ingredient. We collected leftover bread scraps from local Twin Cities bakeries and developed our own self-curated quality process to make sure it is safe and ready to be used as a functional, nutritive ingredient for baking. I wanted to make sure that we incorporated Kernza® in our formulation because it fits so well in the theme of using sustainably sourced ingredients to develop ReToast.'"

I didn't know that bread is the most wasted food.

And yes there are plans for commercialization. The link includes photographs of the snack and the team upon receiving the award and links.