Two Dunedin distillers say they are the first in the country to use bakery waste as the core ingredient in their gin-making venture.
Jenny McDonald and Sue Stockwell began making gin under the Dunedin Craft Distillers label in 2020, using surplus bread destined for landfills.
Each week, Kiwi Harvest, a food rescue organisation, delivers boxes of leftover bread to the central city distillery, a former scrap metal yard.
“We take what they can’t give away,” explained McDonald. “And that’s as it should be because we certainly did not want to take food out of anyone’s mouth.”
The pair carefully count the amount of bread they use and claim to have diverted more than 10,000 tonnes of bakery waste from landfills, which would have released methane gas into the atmosphere.
McDonald said the idea of using bread as an ethanol source was born out of frustration at the volume of bakery waste.
“Annually, across New Zealand, it’s just shy of about 3000 tonnes, and that’s just from supermarket and commercial waste, so we’re not even talking about household waste.”
The gin-making venture had humble beginnings in a small commercial kitchen.
To break the bread down, Stockwell stirred the pot for several hours at a time. The pair have now launched a Pledge Me campaign to commission a repurposed mash kettle to automate the process.
The bread is “cooked” to break starch and carbohydrates into simple sugars. Once strained, yeast is added to the remaining sugary syrup to form a salty beer, which is poured into the still.
The leftover solids are fed to cows at a local organic dairy farm, in accordance with the company’s waste minimisation principles.
McDonald explained the brewing process.
“We start with our 8% by volume alcohol beer — about 500 litres — and after about nine or 10 hours, we get just south of 50 litres of 93.5% per cent alcohol by the time Hildegard’s done her work.”
McDonald proudly showed Seven Sharp the impressive copper still, nicknamed “Hildegard”.
“She was a force to be reckoned with in the 12th century — a herbalist,” McDonald explained. “She was also the patron saint of hops, so we thought that was quite appropriate.”
The Dunedin distillers recall tasting their first brew.
“We thought it was fantastic at the time, but we’ve developed,” laughed McDonald.
International recognition is proof of that. At the 2023 London Spirit Awards, McDonald & Stockwell won gold with their Bay Gin and silver with their Dunedin Dry.
“It’s validation that even though we start with a bit of old bread, you can produce a premium spirit. We can stand comfortably alongside others on the shelf.”
The source bread comes in many shapes, sizes and varieties, from croissants and bagels to date scones and sticky buns.
Stockwell said the only bakery item that affected the flavour in the end product was garlic naan.
“The garlic flavour goes right through the distillation — not good.”
A mulled gin — best served piping hot on a cold winter’s day — is a new offering, and McDonald said a surge in consumer interest in gin was “fortunate timing” for their venture, one that ticks all the boxes.
“Nobody likes waste. The really interesting thing is that people don’t like to waste, but sometimes it’s difficult not to.
“What we’re trying to do is make it easier not to waste, and that feels like a good thing to do.”