A university student has been offered £20,000 in investment to develop a concept of brewing beer from bread bound for landfill.

Dimitris-Marios Stoidis, 23, an engineering student from The University of Southampton is the founder of Future Brew, a startup that turns leftover supermarket bread into beer which is sold online and across the city.

He pitched his idea to a panel of millionaire investors at a Dragons’ Den-style event at the University of Southampton.

The concept attracted the interest of two investors (Chris Broad, former Apple Director of Sales Contracting and Andrew Doe, founder of confetti.co.uk) who offered £20,000 towards the project's development and valued Future Brew at £200,000.

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Dimitris said: “This investment will help us upscale our production, access big retailers and supermarkets and increase our impact across Southampton and the UK in the future.”

According to sustainability organisation WRAP, 1.9 million tonnes of food is wasted in the UK every year and bread alone makes up 900,000 tonnes of this.

Future Brew uses this surplus bread as one of the main ingredients to brew their beer and with every pint, they save 160g of CO2 from the atmosphere (the equivalent of driving 1.5km in a car.)

By cutting CO2 and redistributing excess food to homeless shelters, Dimitris said the beer is effectively “carbon negative.”

Daily Echo: Investors at the Future Worlds eventInvestors at the Future Worlds event

The event was hosted by Future Worlds, an on campus “start up accelerator” at The University of Southampton which helps student projects gain funding.

Event director Ben Clark said: “There are moments when a single encounter can be life-changing.

“Future Worlds Dragons’ Den is such a moment for some of the immensely talented founders that pitch in front of four millionaire investors who have offered more than £500,000 investment to student start-ups.”

Dimitris encouraged anyone with a business idea to “just go for it.”

He said: “If you don’t try or talk to people you will never find just how much your idea could be worth.”