Nijmegen is perhaps the most sustainable and social confectionery in the Netherlands. Pumpkins too small for sale? Or carrot tips left over from the prepackaged carrots? Jeanne, Bram and Anton make the tastiest pastry with their Trash’ure Taarten from leftover fruit and vegetables. And meanwhile, they train refugees to become confectioners.
Worldwide, a third of all food ends up in the trash. Sin and unnecessary. Although most waste occurs at home, a lot is lost in the industry as well when processing or transporting food. In addition, the strict beauty rules cause a lot of waste: in total about 10 percent of all green and fruit is wasted because it is not “pretty” enough to sell.
The entrepreneurial community of For the World of Tomorrow consists of hundreds of companies that want to solve major problems. In the case of Trash’ure Pies, that is the problem of food waste. Pumpkins that are 100 grams too light for a place on the supermarket shelf, or plums that are 3 millimeters short according to the quality requirements. You won’t find it in the supermarket. Trash’ure Cakes uses these products to make delicious baked goods. They sell these in local cafes and restaurants and through their special letterbox delivery service.
Carrot cake of carrot points
At Trash’ure they mainly use products that are deformed or that have refrigeration and freezing damage. The latter arises because fruit is often picked in the fall and then sold all year round. This is possible because a large part of the harvest is stored refrigerated. But the longer the fruit is in the refrigerator, the greater the chance of damage.
The bakery receives many different residual flows and surpluses from all corners of the industry. Jeanne: “The root tips and heads that remain when processing carrots, for example. Prepackaged scraped carrots have to be in a certain shape, so the top and bottom are cut off. But we also get surpluses. Some crops grow too well, causing them to become large. But last year, for example, it was too dry, so everything was too small then.”
Trash ‘ure Pies makes the most delicious pastries and most of them are vegetable
No crumb wasted
The bakery is an idea of Jeanne herself: “I got this idea after I finished my studies in environmental science at the HAS, when I was very concerned with the quality of life of the earth and our impact on the environment. But also that many places become uninhabitable as a result and people have to move away. And I really wanted to do something with that because that story touches me very much. That is why Trash’ure Taarten was founded and hence the link with refugees and food waste.”
Jeanne started the pastry shop together with Anton and Bram, Jeanne arranges all residual flows and does sales and the other two complement this perfectly. Jeanne: “Anton is a true craftsman and trained as a cook, his great passion is desserts. And Bram is digitally very strong. Which is super handy because we do everything online. A brick and mortar store would only lead to waste, because you would be left with stock that you don’t sell. So we only work with orders.”
The bakery and employees of Trash’ure Taarten in Nijmegen
An organized disorganized bakery
At Trash’ure Taarten it works slightly different than at a normal bakery. Other bakeries can buy just the right amount of ingredients anywhere, at any time of the day. Jeanne: “All three of us don’t have that, so we need a lot of different waste streams.” So the question is always what the bakery will receive for residual flows this week, they never know how much and what exactly they will get.
Jeanne: “The trouble with food waste is that it is very unpredictable, otherwise it wouldn’t have been wasted, because it could have been prevented.” And so the bakery has a range that varies, it depends on the different residual flows that come in to them. Jeanne: “Actually, it’s a completely organized, unorganized mess.”
So at Trash’ure Cakes they look for partners who don’t mind getting a varying assortment of cakes. Jeanne: “Three years ago it was a lot more difficult to find customers, but fortunately more and more people understand it. Because actually we shouldn’t think it normal to eat apple pie all year round, because apples don’t grow all year round either.”
The Trash’ure team makes the most beautiful cakes!
letterbox cake
It also makes a difference that food waste is now more on the agenda and companies are more involved in it. Jeanne: “It is not difficult to find companies that want to work together, but not everyone understands what it means for them. Then they ask if they can order brownies this week or something else the week after. The best are the partners who don’t care what they get, as long as it tastes good.” Consumers understand it better in that regard. Jeanne: “they go to our website and then just buy what is available at that moment”.
Bakery and social workplace
And they are not alone in the bakery, people who have fled to the Netherlands work in the bakery and thus get a stepping stone to the labor market. Jeanne therefore not only wants to save food, she also wants to help people further: “in a period of 3 years we want to save a total of 60 tons of food from direct waste and guide 75 people and make them financially independent”. About 14 people now work at Trash’ure Taarten and 21 people have already been successfully trained in recent years.
Curious about the delicacies of these impactful entrepreneurs? In and around Nijmegen you can taste them at BUUR, De Wit, THIBEAU, Bagels and Beans Lange Hezelstraat, Milinger Theetuin, Plek, Deli and Lux. Do you live further away? Order the tastiest vegetable pastries by post.
