AUTHOR: Cristina Covello – Marketing and Strategy Manager, Fooditude
What inspired you to support the Food Made Good Awards?
We have committed to establishing a strong CSR and sustainability strategy this year by involving more people from across the business to help us achieve our goals and by communicating our challenges and achievements publicly. We think that being more involved with the Sustainable Restaurant Association will help us better understand the issues our industry is facing and also provide a platform to have our voice heard. We’re supporting the Food Made Good Awards because it’s a great way for our team to work on a joint project that is different from our every day work – plus we get to be part of a great community event and help to make it a success.
How do you see the category you’re aligning with help accelerate positive change in hospitality?
We are sponsoring the SRA’s “Celebrate Local & Seasonal” category because we believe that eating local food and writing menus according to the seasons is the key to creating healthy and delicious meals. As contract caterers it can sometimes be a struggle to serve hyper-local food at our scale and within budget. We admire those businesses that are able to commit to supporting their local economies and food systems and we want to help recognise and promote businesses in hospitality that think this way. We also want to learn from their work. By sponsoring this category we’re opening the dialogue and creating awareness about how to continuously improve sourcing and menu writing.
What sustainability issue do you expect to rise to the fore in 2020 and why?
There are a number issues that will persist in 2020 – from single use plastics to food waste. However, I think climate change will reach a tipping point with more of the general public beginning to understand the scale of the problem and the urgency with which it must be addressed. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) we have until 2030 to slash emissions and save the planet – the 10 years from 2020 will be crucial! We have gained The Planet Mark accreditation to show our commitment to reducing our carbon emissions. Reducing our food waste, writing our menus with the local seasons in mind and increasing our vegetarian options will help us achieve our reduction target of 3% this year and we urge others in hospitality to adopt an approach that puts the planet first, implementing a menu of measures to fight climate change.
