It’s estimated that one third of all food produced is wasted while nearly 900 million people go hungry. It’s this alarming statistic that inspired Copenhagen-based company Wasted to begin turning surplus bread into pasta in 2022. It’s also the impetus for a collaboration with Bao, the popular London Taiwanese restaurant group, to create a limited-edition Wasted Ragu Ramen dish using leftover ingredients. And for 100 lucky Londoners, they’ll get to try a bowl for free on Wednesday April 15.
Naturally, the base of the dish is noodles – but this time, Wasted will make them from surplus bread from Alma Bakery in Bermondsey. It’s an exciting departure from the group’s usual bread-to-pasta pipeline – and took some experimentation to get right.
“The starting point is pretty much the same… [but] the main difference is texture,” Jorge Aguilar, co-founder of Wasted, tells Broadsheet. “With noodles, you really want that chew and bounce, and that’s not something bread flour just gives you straight away. So it was a bit of back and forth to get it right – but honestly, that’s the fun part.”
The noodles aren’t the only thing about the Wasted Ragu Ramen that is low-waste. The dish features a gently spiced Taiwanese mushroom ragu in chicken broth, with radish greens, peas and a jammy egg. “The idea came from the leftovers of mushroom and kelp from our dashi and kelp soup,” Bao executive chef Federico Cassino tells Broadsheet. “Normally we use them as staff food in our noodle shops – they’re so tasty that we never want them to go to waste. So the idea came from there, then cooking them further to get that intense umami flavour.”
Then there’s the chicken stock, made from the leftover bones from Bao’s beloved fried chicken. “Knowing that we have [them] brought the first thought of doing a creamy, collagenous chicken soup,” says Cassino.
In a happy accident, Aguilar and Cassino found that the unique flavour of the noodles made from bread actually improved the dish as a whole. “[They have] a toasty, nutty flavour coming from the caramelisation of the bread,” says Cassino. “It rounds up the noodles greatly in combination with our noodle recipe.”
And to drink with the ramen? Bao has created a limited-edition cocktail, the Banana Split, made with rum infused from coffee grounds that would otherwise have been thrown away, with banana and an Oatly vanilla foam.
To further support redistribution of surplus food across London, £1 from every bowl sold will be donated to the charity The Felix Project.
To celebrate this collaboration, Bao in Shoreditch will be giving away 100 bowls of the Wasted Ragu Ramen and 100 Banana Split cocktails from midday on Wednesday April 15. The catch? You need to bring your own chopsticks.
“We’re always looking for ways to reduce waste and do things more thoughtfully,” Erchen Chang, Bao co-founder, said in a statement. “Working with Wasted felt like a natural fit – turning surplus bread into something completely new and different.”
The Wasted Ragu Ramen is available at Bao’s Marylebone, King’s Cross, City, Shoreditch and Battersea sites from April 14 to May 9.
