For information relating to allergens, please see our disclaimer on the menus page.
Patrons of sustainability, welcome to volume three of the impact blog series! The mood in Rare Restaurants HQ has been particularly upbeat over the past couple of weeks, following news that we have been awarded a one star ‘Food Made Good rating’ from the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA). The SRA works with businesses across the foodservice industry, industry bodies, campaign groups and suppliers to accelerate change towards an environmentally and socially progressive sector. Their vision is to make eating out good for everyone by generating a restorative impact on the planet.
The Food Made Good rating recognises our initiatives and our accomplishments thus far. An assessment of our business was carried out across three pillars of sustainability including sourcing, society and environment. Our highest overall score was achieved in the environment category thanks to these remarkable initiatives:
Rolling out a zero-food-waste-to-landfill policy across the group
Working towards a 75% recycling rate across all restaurants
Setting a target to become a net zero carbon business by 2030
Read the full report here https://gauchorestaurants.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Final-2022-Rating-Report-for-Gaucho-Restaurants-min.pdf
As well as recognising the hard work happening behind the scenes, the report suggests key focus areas to further improve our positive impacts on the planet. Looking ahead we will introduce new measures to achieve our second star. We are committed to:
Sourcing fish responsibly – we will ensure that no fish rated 4 or 5 by the Marine Conservation Society’s Good Fish Guide will appear on our menus
Introducing waste management (non-food) targets – we have rolled out waste management training across all sites and monitor – progress towards a 75% recycling rate
Decarbonising the supply chain – we will work with suppliers to better understand how to reduce carbon emissions further down the supply chain
Receiving our first Food Made Good star from the SRA is a major milestone for the group and we are incredibly proud of this recognition, which has encouraged us to expand our efforts. Our mission to have a positive impact on planet has never felt more real and we will continue challenging ourselves and the sector to make changes. For more information and regular updates on our sustainability efforts head to our impact page.
For a long time now, M Restaurants and indeed the entire Rare Restaurants group has been conscious of our social and environmental impact on the planet, people and community. In 2015 we partnered up with ‘Not For Sale’ a movement which seeks to fight modern-day slavery. Since then, our list of charity partners has grown exponentially and today we’re proud partners of five outstanding organisations including ‘Only A Pavement Away’, ‘The Right Course’, ‘School of Hard Knocks’ and ‘Hospitality Action’. Our drive to become a sustainable business has only increased over the years and is now an integral part of the company’s values and its future. In 2021 we hired our first Impact Manager Alyson Parkes, who studied Environmental Sustainability at university, later taking on a position with the Sustainable Restaurant Association and managing an environmental project for Linklaters, before returning to study at the university founded by the ‘Slow Food Movement’. Alyson is working closely with the ‘Carbon Group’, ‘Net Zero Now’, the ‘Zero Carbon Forum’ and Martin Williams our CEO, steering our environmental strategy to set out and achieve these long-term goals:
Become a net zero carbon emissions business by 2030
In the interim, address the environmental impact of our Black Angus cattle in Argentina by:
Reducing the carbon emissions from beef production in our partner farms and offsetting the remaining emissions by 2025
Offsetting the carbon emissions of one cut of beef in 2022, so that we can offer a carbon neutral steak option at each restaurant.
“The road to sustainable beef production is challenging and can only be successful through collaboration” – Alyson (2022).
We began by undertaking a project to better understand our carbon footprint of our beef, from birth and fattening at the farm level, to the emissions from transportation to restaurants. This tells us what offsetting is required to achieve carbon neutral status of our beef and ultimately identify opportunities to reduce emissions along the supply chain.
‘Not For Sale’ is a charity that works with local communities in South America to understand the root causes of modern slavery. They investigate local economies to discover where they might break the cycle of slavery by creating projects that provide education, empowerment, and income. Since 2015 we have raised over £300,000 for the movement including a company investment in their environmental reforestation projects which saw us fund the planting of over 4,000 trees in 2021 and contributed to our offsetting goals.
We’re proud of the work we’re doing and we hope that in addition to the work of ourselves and our suppliers, that you, our guests, will help us become a net zero business by 2030.
It’s a long roadmap to realising our dream of becoming an entirely carbon neutral restaurant group and we’re excited to do this in the right way and to share our journey with you through the impact blog series. Each month we’ll be keeping guests up to date with our progress and learnings.
M fans, ambassadors of sustainability and earth lovers – welcome to part 2 of the Impact Blog Series. If you read our first feature Impact Blog 1 last month, you’ll know we’re on a mission to become a net zero carbon business by 2030. This month we we’re taking a closer look at some of the sustainability initiatives we’ve carried out already, to get us started on this journey.
In 2021 we became a member of the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), who have helped us conduct a sustainability assessment – a holistic review across all aspects of operations, from sourcing food to community initiatives and efficient energy use. The results from this will feed into our net zero strategy, alongside our progress with the Carbon Forum, who we joined forces with, in January 2022. The Forum was set up specifically for hospitality businesses, offering guidance on the net zero journey, using the community spirit of our great industry to learn, share and facilitate collaborative projects. The forum will help to influence restaurant supply chains encouraging them to start calculating their carbon footprints, reduce waste in the supply chain and invest in more efficient transport logistics.
The power and influence of the industry has also given us the opportunity to push for legislative changes, which go beyond the changes we’re making at Rare – something we’re very proud to be a part of. We joined the Better Business Act Coalition in 2021 to call for an amendment to The Companies Act, so that the interests of shareholders increasingly align with environmental and sustainability needs.
Finally, we are proud to be able to see more results of our investment in reforestation and offsetting projects both here in the UK and in South America. In addition to our work with Not For Sale (highlighted last month), our Gaucho Impact Ambassadors enjoyed a day of tree planting in the Hampshire countryside alongside our drinks partners Glass Half Full and Sapling Spirits. We planted 600 trees in total, which will offset around 900 tonnes of carbon over their lifetime. Having measured the carbon footprint of our Argentinian beef, these projects contribute towards the offsetting needs of our beef production and our carbon neutral beef offering.
It’s fair to say that a large part of the work we’re committed to is happening behind the scenes and so we decided to expand our focus into the restaurants, creating initiatives that involve staff and customers. It’s important for us to be able to provide a visible and tangible experience, to help us spread awareness to our customers and beyond. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to
• Engage staff and form a committee of Impact Ambassadors • Develop Impact Awareness training, covering carbon literacy • Roll out waste management, electricity, and water efficiency training • Work with our suppliers to decarbonise and remove packaging where possible throughout the supply chain • Host sustainable supper club events at Charlotte Street, the first of which will take place on April 20th
Welcome to our blog post for December – the festive season! This joyful time of year is full of plenty and abundance, but it can also be excessive and careless – especially when it comes to food waste. So it seems only fitting that today we are talking about our new efforts to improve food waste management in our restaurants, as well as our water efficiency and conservation. Let’s get into it.
Our plan to reduce food waste
As a restaurant group, we’ve set an ambitious (but achievable) target to halve the amount of restaurant food waste we produce by 2030. This is against a 2022 baseline.
Our goals include food waste produced kitchen prep, spoiled food (past use-by date and rotten) and the food that goes uneaten by guests (known as plate waste).
To really understand how much food waste we produce across the restaurants, a two-week review is planned. Here we will split out the restaurant waste into the three waste streams, whereby each will be weighed at the end of each day. This allows us to estimate the amount produced annually (via some multiplication).
Not only does this process give us a usable number, it also identifies where food waste is most prolific in our restaurants. From this evaluation, we can make more tailored recommendations for initiatives that can reduce food waste.
What will our new food waste management initiatives include?
Reviewing menu development – try to make use of all ingredients – peelings and all!
Reviewing portion sizes (don’t worry, we’ll make sure you still have a healthy amount of food on your plate).
Helping guests when making decisions about how much food they want to order.
Implementing new training for the front of the house on balancing upselling of dishes with potential for food waste.
Creating training for chefs on how to reduce food waste in the kitchen.
Alongside these systematic initiatives within the restaurant, we’ll also consider ways to liaise with local charities. This means that, where possible, edible food that is unlikely to be sold to guests can be redistributed to charities working to alleviate food poverty.
Water efficiency and conservation
Food waste isn’t the only thing we need to consider. Water conservation in the hospitality industry is also a huge area of focus.
Water is life, and it’s becoming increasingly scarce. By 2030, the gap between global demand and supplies of freshwater is expected to reach 40%. Not only this, but the link between climate change and water is inextricable. Think worsening floods, rising sea levels, shrinking ice fields, wildfires and droughts.
As a result, sustainable water management is central to building the resilience of societies and ecosystems and to reducing carbon emissions. And everyone has a role to play – individuals, households and commercial businesses. That includes restaurants.
With this in mind, improving water efficiency practices in our kitchen aligns with our work to improve energy efficiency, protecting key resources, and reducing carbon emissions. It all links and is helping to fight the same problem.
How are we improving water conservation?
If you want to know how to save water in a commercial kitchen, it all comes down to improving systems within. This includes monitoring for leaks, not selling pre-packaged water and upgrading dishwashers. But in terms of overall water efficiency, the real key to improvement is establishing a healthy relationship with suppliers.
As well as introducing innovative and systemic new ways to conserve water within everyday cycles, we aim to promote sustainable water management with new sustainable suppliers. By 2030, our goal is to source 50% of our fresh food supply from areas with sustainable water management.
What else are we doing for water efficiency?
Using WRAP’s Roadmap towards water security for food and drink supply, and the WWF Water Risk Filter, we are building a strategy with our suppliers to protect critical water resources.
These targets align with Goal 6 in the UN Sustainable Development, which is to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. It also contributes to our personal journey to becoming a net zero restaurant by 2040. This measurement is done with a special focus on Scope 3 emissions, which includes things like transportation, business travel and, of course, food waste disposal. If you couldn’t tell, we’re incredibly passionate about this!
Summary
In our ambition to one day be a zero waste restaurant, we hope that implementing new food waste management actions will set us on the right path. And with the immediate goal to reduce food waste by half by 2030, we are incredibly committed to tightening up on our water conservation and restaurant food waste management.
If you enjoyed this article and are interested in learning more about our eco-friendly restaurants, you may want to check out some more Impact articles. We love talking about sustainability and food. If you do too, keep an eye out for more blogs!
