Last week, we hosted a panel event to tackle one of the most crucial topics in the industry today, sustainability. Hosted on the roof garden of The Culpeper, we brought together people within the Foodchain community to hear what four experts had to say on the topic. We’ve summarised below the key findings from the panel.
Apathy prevents progression. Customers are consumers before they are citizens.
Our needs have been commercialised so that consumption is now the cultural norm. While people may disagree with non-sustainable farming practices such as caged chicken farms, they struggle to resist the sticky chicken wings on the menu and every now and then have a ‘cheeky’ Nando’s, giving into their consumerist desires. This was a key discovery of the panel: Until constumers boycott restaurants who have poor practices to become citizens, rather than consumers, restaurants will not be truly rewarded for their commitment to sustainability.
Connectivity is the way to improve things.
You stop your customer from being a consumer, but within the four walls of your restaurant. You can set an example by changing how consumers eat and connect with supply. How to do this:
Connect directly with producers. As Nick from Black Welsh Lamb recognised, connecting directly to chefs was essential in the support of his sustainable practices*. You can’t however, do this powerfully if you do not know where your produce comes from. Find the origin of your ingredients and where possible, work directly with them (Foodchain enables seamless trading directly with producers & farmers across the UK click here to get in contact).
“Working direct makes a massive difference to the farmer.” Oscar from Duchess Farm
Storytelling. Embrace the dedication you have taken to your sourcing by celebrating the food stories behind them. We should be treating ingredients like we do wine, celebrating differentiation and origin. While these products often cost more, through engagement of the customer with food stories, the expense for the customer is justified. Foodchain can help you with the content and marketing of your own food stories, contact Amelia to hear more about this.
The depth of knowledge out there is huge.
Each panellist brought with them insights from entirely different areas of expertise.
“This can be helpful, but also challenging for people to navigate” Paul Newnham
This was a relief for some chefs to hear, everyone struggles with how to tackle this issue as much as they do. There isn’t one view there which restaurants can subscribe to: the answer for restaurants is to learn as much as they can on the issue, then form their own view.
Tom Hunt spoke about his personal view focused around seasonality, food waste and root-to-fruit eating for Poco. He recognised that while his practices weren’t norms across the industry he had explanations for why they felt sustainable to them. He has made this agenda of his public, so that customers can hold him to it.
“Sustainability does and will take many forms. It is different everywhere and to everyone, but the more that we can all make ecology and community the core of our food choices the more (hopefully) things will change for the better.” Abi Glencross
Restaurants and chefs have a responsibility to feed people well and set an example. Foodchain will look to share practices and continue the conversation on this by bringing in actors within the industry.
“The main discovery I had from the event was that there is a growing community that are interested, and care enough, to come out and fill a place with a waiting list on a Monday afternoon, all whom care about sustainability in food and want to learn more. It was really quite uplifting, and seeing and tasting all the wares that again have sustainability on many levels at their core. Its so lovely to gain the perspective from many walks of life” Abi Glencross
With a huge thanks to our panellists:
Abi Glencross, The Sustainable Food Story & Future Farm lab
Nick Miller, CEO of Miller Research and owner of Black Welsh Lamb
Tom Hunt, award-winning chef, food writer, food waste campaigner, author of The Natural Cook and ambassador for the Soil Association.
Paul Newnham, Co-ordinator of the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) Advocacy Hub secretariat incubated by the World Food Programme.
*When Nick Miller started Black Welsh Lamb, he decided he wanted to farm in a certain way. However differentiating their product had no return at market because all farmers were paid the same. The only way Nick could survive was through finding his own route to market; in this case by selling to top local chefs and direct to consumers (hence why Foodchain has been so invaluable to him).
