ST. LOUIS — Josh Allen, founder and owner of St. Louis-based Companion Baking, has been named the 2021 “Sustainability Hero” at the Tiptree World Bread Awards, among the country’s top recognitions celebrating the bread community. Allen was also named a Midwest runner-up in the Bread Heroes competition.
Allen received the Sustainability Hero award for his series of micro-innovations to reduce the amount of trash the bakery produces by more than 1 million lbs. By measuring and managing their trash, Allen and his team have changed their thoughts — and actions — regarding waste.
“At Companion Baking, we have focused on reducing food waste at our factory for the past 40 months,” Allen said in his award recognition. “When we first moved into our new facility in late 2015, we didn’t anticipate the challenges we’d encounter with growing the business. Those challenges manifested themselves as mistakes in our production, which essentially means lots and lots of waste. At our low point, we were generating nearly 1,600,000 lbs. of annual trash. That amount of trash will cover an entire football field nearly 5 ft. deep in waste.”
Today, waste reduction plays a role in every decision at Companion, including sales, production, automation and packaging with tools such as flour reclamation on the bread lines and a composting and recycling program that has cut the bakery’s landfill contribution by more than 75%.
“At Companion Baking, we have focused on reducing food waste at our factory for the past 40 months,” said Josh Allen, founder and owner of Companion Baking.
Supported by the International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE), the World Bread Awards were founded in 2017 by Caroline Kenyon. For the first time this year, the awards celebrated not only 13 regional Bread Heroes but also an additional selection of special awards, including the Brook Food Dream Team Award, KitchenAid Home Baker Hero, Shipton Mill Real Bread Hero, Tiptree Outstanding Achievement Award, Wright’s Flour Award for Innovation, and Zeelandia Award for Sustainability.
The judging panel consisted of more than 75 industry experts ranging from baking professionals to media, marketers and educators.
Find the complete list of Tiptree World Bread Awards Heros USA winners here.
