A Startup Business Established by ECE UG Student Won the Championship in the HKUST-Sino One-Million-Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2021

A startup business, Breer, founded by ECE UG student Anushka PUROHIT awarded HKUST Entrepreneurship Acceleration Fund.  The team comes from different undergraduate majors of HKUST: Suyash MOHAN (SBM, Year 2), Deevansh GUPTA (Marketing and Management, Year 2) and Naman TEKRIWAL (undeclared major, Year 3).  The team competed for Enactus HKUST where they won both HKUST and Hong Kong rounds.  They used the fund to start out the business and received HKUST Entrepreneurship Acceleration Fund in 2019-20 Spring.

In the last few years, the number of bread going to waste as a result of being unsold/uneaten has increased drastically.  Breer is a food upcycling initiative that works hard to reduce the existing gaps in the supply chain by collecting all otherwise wasted bread, while introducing a novel, local taste of beer in the market.  

The team liaises with Breer Runners (students from different units and schools in Hong Kong) who help the company collect donated bread from the partnering bakeries, deliver to the breweries, and their partner breweries help us brew the beer.  The business is currently located and incorporated in Hong Kong.

[Updated on 6 Aug 2021] “The Able Company”, champion of the HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition this year, started their waste bread recycling business in 2019 when they realized that nearly 1,700 tonnes of unsold bread are discarded by bakeries alone every day. The team came up with a proposal that turns leftover bread and unsold pizza crust into bottles of fruity and flavorful pale ale, which are now available in five stores under the Jardine Restaurant Group and Maxim’s with ongoing expansion plans. The company is an incubatee of HKSTP’s STEP Program (The Science and Technology Entrepreneur Program).  They have also won the Platinum Award, Student Gold Award, and Elevator Pitch Award in this Competition. (Extracted from HKUST Press Release: HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2021 Spotlights Creative Solutions to Solve Societal Issues)

Related Links

• BREER Website
• HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2021 Spotlights Creative Solutions to Solve Societal Issues
• Announcement of Results

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