Blog

On this page we will discuss an area we are working on to make our practices more sustainable.  At The Badger’s kitchen it is our mission to ensure that we are constantly reviewing our choices to be sustainable and responsible.  These might be small steps,  but each step needs to count to ensure we reduce our impact on the world.

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Reducing Food Waste

Reducing food waste at retail, food service and a household level can provide multi-faceted benefits for both people and the planet. The true scale of food waste and its impacts have not been well understood until now.  We can all make simple lifestyle changes to enable food waste reduction both domestically and commercially.

At the The Badger’s Kitchen we have introduced several things to ensure we keep our food waste to a minimum.  The list below explains how we have made changes to reduce our impact by reducing food waste from purchase – production – consumption.

1. Fresh to order
   All the food is made fresh upon receipt of a food order.  Whilst this means an extra 5 minute delay to the customer, we ensure all meals and snacks are at their very best without throwing away large amounts of food at the end of the day.
2. Food ordering
   We encourage as many customers as possible to book and order what they would like.  This helps us to plan food purchasing, reduce over ordering and reduce wastage, as we know what customers want.  Sunday lunches are are shining star in this initiative, because we know how many people will be attending and what they want we dramatically reduce food waste.  Therefore, we only keep a small number of extra lunches for those spare of the moment decisions. 
3. Reuse Waste Food
   Our careful menu planning allows us to reduce the number of food items we need to order.  The ingredients we buy are linked to as many dishes as possible to maximise their use and prevent waste.  We identify how we can reuse unsold food staples to create fantastic and tasty special options that bring creative and tasty dishes to the menu – however this does mean on some days we only have limited specials if we have been very successful at points 1 and 2.
4. Share Surplus Food
   It always a shame to throw away good food that is perfectly edible but maybe coming to the end of its self life. Therefore, we share all end of shelf life food with staff and centre workers, but unfortunately for them cakes are a rarity!
5. Composting Waste Food (Hotboxing)
   All unusable waste and left-over food is collected separately in a bin at the end of the day.  We then take this mix it with the left-over coffee grounds, some shredded paper and bit of bulking agency and feed it to our Hotbox who changes it into compost within 60 days and produces the most amazing feed run off.

Hot Composting

Hotboxing is incredibly easy!  All you need to do it to buy a Hotbox (we purchased from here).

Its just a large polystyrene box that you feed over 2-3 days.  It odourless, self-contained and fits in a corner of your garden and is 32 times faster than traditional cold composting.

• Compost all garden and all kitchen waste (inc cooked & raw food & leftovers)
• Insulating walls lock in the naturally produced heat generated by the bacterial process
• No turning, no tumbling, no accelerators and no external power source required
• Reduce spend on paid for local council green waste collections

We hope you will join us in our Food Waste reduction campaign and let us know if you join the hot composting world!

Disposable Cups vs Reusable Cups

Although largely made from paper, disposable coffee cups are lined with plastic polyethylene, which is tightly bonded to the paper making the cups waterproof and therefore able to contain liquid.  This also doesn’t include the plastic tops we drink from which often just go in land fill.

Disposable Coffee Cup Facts!

• UK throws away a staggering 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups every year
• Less than 1 per cent of coffee cups are recycled
• Half a million cups are littered every day
• Packaging producers only pay for 10 per cent of the cost of packaging disposal and recycling

The Badger’s Kitchen action plan!

Reusable Cups – We will be providing service to have a reusable cup all our hot drinks.  This can be purchased along with your drink and you take the cup home with you for another time or return the cup to the Kitchen and get a “deposit back.”  You could also bring your own reusable cup and receive a discount on your hot drink.

Vegware, True recyclable take away cups – We recognise that using reusable cups isn’t always practical.  Vegware Cups are made from plants using renewable, lower carbon, recycled or reclaimed materials, and designed to be commercially compostable with food waste, where accepted. Compostables are a practical solution for single-use food-contaminated disposables, allowing foodservice suppliers to achieve their sustainability goals.

Next Topic – How The Badger’s Kitchen Plan to Reduce Food Waste