Sustainability at Roehampton’s Hive Café
Emily’s Lovingly Made Nut Butters
By Valerie Quintana
Meet Emily Wright, chef at The Hive Café and creator of Emily’s Lovingly Made Nut Butters now on sale at the Hive. With a passion for wholesome and unprocessed food, she is dedicated to fair-trade products and sustainability.
Emily’s venture started with a personal love of nut butters as she relies on nuts as a significant source of protein in her plant-based vegan diet. It became quite costly for her to purchase these products in stores, so she decided to start making her own and share them with the Roehampton community.
She began experimenting with flavours and tested them with friends and family until they narrowed it down to several favourites to sell at The Hive. Current varieties available include organic salted peanut, organic salted peanut and cacao, cashew and espresso, cashew, peanut and cinnamon, almond and toasted coconut and almond and raisin. All of her butters are made from natural and organic ingredients.
“My aim is to live in a more conscious and sustainable way. I do this by buying locally and from small businesses when I can, reducing food and general waste to a minimum personally and within The Hive Cafe,” said Emily. “Eventually trying to cut down on my use of plastic completely! Therefore, I’ve chosen to use only glass jars and paper tags for my nut butters meaning the jars can be returned or re-used before, last resort, recycled.”
Another issue with conventional nut butters on sale in supermarkets is that many of them contain high amounts of palm oil and sugar. Some varieties are also not suitable for vegans. Palm oil extraction has been known to destroy rainforests and the wildlife living there, so Emily encourages others to avoid buying foods with palm oil products in them to help the cause.
“I am a strong believer in fair trade for everyone.” said Emily. “Therefore, from every jar sold I am donating 10% of profits to fair trade alliance, in order to give the farmers growing and harvesting nuts, just like the ones I use in my butters, a fair cut of money so that they are able to support themselves and their families.”
