A Japanese company recently released a white crust milk bread that it hopes will curb the practice of removing the crust when making sandwiches.

Did you know that the vast majority of milk bread sandwiches made daily in Japan have their crusts removed? While crusted sandwiches do exist, the general perception is that the fluffy, white part of Japanese shokupan milk bread is tastier than the brown crust. This perception dates back to a time long ago when the crust was harder to chew through, but things are definitely a lot different today. The crust is nice and soft, but people still seem to prefer crusted sandwiches. That results in a lot of food waste, but one company hopes to change that with an innovative white crust shokupan bread.

Photo: Imperial Hotel Co., Ltd.

Tokyo Chef Sugimoto and his team at the Imperial Hotel Co., Ltd. spent six months developing an innovative type of bread that they claim eliminates the need to get rid of the crust. People have been coming up with all sorts of ways to recycle bread crusts in order to curb food waste, but Sugimoto’s idea was to create a crust that didn’t have to be discarded in the first place.

Although Imperial Hotel did not fully disclose the secret behind its new white crust bread, it did mention that it is baked slowly at a lower temperature than regular shokupan bread, which results in a white color all through the bread and a more moist texture.

Photo: Imperial Hotel Co., Ltd.

Founded in 1890 by Japanese aristocracy, Imperial Hotel used to serve crustless milk bread sandwiches to its customers, but starting on October 1st of this year, they will be switching to this new white crust bread, thus decreasing its food waste considerably.

The white crust bread will be served in the Imperial Hotel’s restaurants and at banquets, but people will also be able to purchase it from Gargantua Delicatessen, a luxury bakery that has been operating since 1971.