Photo: CRUST Group
CRUST Group is on a mission to put unsold, stale bread to good use by making beers.
Seeing opportunity in the large amounts of unsold bread thrown out daily, Travin Singh, CEO and founder of CRUST Group, dabbled in his love for brewing and improved recipes to create beers from bread waste. The company has wonderful ambitions to reduce global food waste by one percent by 2030.
After spending six years in the Singapore Navy and working as a financial consultant, Travin Singh started Crust Group to create a more circular economy. We spoke to him about his brand and mission.
Travin Singh, Founder & CEO of CRUST Group.
What’s the inspiration behind starting a brand like CRUST Group?
Back in 2018, I knew I wanted to start a business, but I did not want to just start a company with the sole purpose of earning money. I wanted to build a value-based company that gained profit but was mostly about finding solutions; kind of a reference for how businesses would be done in the future.
I wanted to show people that money is a by-product of doing the right things in the right way. I’d been home brewing beers for a while and did a lot of research into the origins of beer. I learned that the preservation of bread is one of the oldest forms of making beer. That was my eureka moment.
I also grew up with the mentality to not waste food. Since young, my mum would cook for us and if we didn’t finish the food on the day itself, she would incorporate it into something new the next day. That is the ideology in terms of starting CRUST Group, creating a value-based company: developing value-based products that reduce food waste.
How many products do you offer?
Currently, we have three flagship beers under our CRUST Brand: Toasted Lager, Breaking
Bread Ale, I Knead An Easy IPA
We also have collaboration beers that are co-branded with the partners we worked with:
CRUST x Good Food People (by Saladstop!)’s Harvest Ale – brewed with Good Food People’s surplus pumpkin and quinoa
CRUST x Tiong Bahru Bakery’s Beerguette – brewed with Tiong Bahru
Bakery’s surplus baguettes
- CRUST x Bettr Coffee’s It’d Bettr Be Beer – brewed with Bettr Coffee’s stale coffee grounds
We are currently working on our second brand CROP and will be launching towards the end of the year. CROP which is our line of functional and health-focused non-alcoholic beverages contains immunity-boosting probiotics. The drinks will be made from fruit and vegetable waste like fruit peels, seeds and rinds.
Photo: CRUST Group