Mr Coleman, famous for his mustard, once said that he made his fortune from the mustard that people throw away on the side of their plates.
We’ve taken his sentiment to heart for different reasons. We look at everything we can do to minimise food waste – in fact, we’re fishing it out wherever we can.
For example, when we put tartare sauce on the side of every plate bearing haddock or scampi – and believe us when we say we prepare a LOT of these dishes every week – we realised that not everyone eats it.
So now, we ask our guests when they order if they’d like it with their dish – we’re not fishing for compliments here, but just this one change has made a significant impact on our food waste.
But we didn’t stop there – by giving guests a small pot of sugar sachets with their tea or coffee rather than giving two sachets with each cup we’ve saved on the sugar sachets which are thrown out, unused. It may be just a spoonful of sugar ... but it helps the food waste go down.
For us it’s all about offering more sustainable alternatives which don’t impact on the quality of our product. So, we’ve phased out ‘squeeze me’ condiment sachets which are always destined for landfill in favour of small glass jar portions of sauces and we provide compostable cups for our event teas and coffees.
All of our food waste – which includes the compostable cups, napkins etc – is all separated and collected several times a week. Anything compostable being sent to a local anaerobic digestor in New Deer. It’s turned into biofuel – which can be used for electricity, gas to grid, heating or biomethane for transport. The remaining digestate is then spread on agricultural land as a fertiliser.
Similarly, all of the oil from the kitchen is also recycled and used for bio diesel.
And if you have every wondered what happens to our coffee bags (which we source from local coffee superstars Caber Coffee)? Worry not, as we roll them up and send them back to Caber where they are recycled into shopping bags - neat!
