Doing Good Through Food: Recent Episodes
Alex Coffin
A show exploring all the ways food and the businesses that serve it can be a force for good in the world. Hosted by Alex Coffin, the show looks at health, sustainability and community through the lens of food and the food service industry. Each episode, Alex talks with an expert guest about their life, their business and what Doing Good Through Food means to them.
Katy Franklin is the Operations Director of ReFED - the only U.S. non-profit wholly dedicated to food waste reduction. It is a think tank that works with decision-makers across the food system to reduce food waste.
ReFED’s work provides data-based insights and guidance on food waste and solutions to it.
They identify both systems level changes to improve outcomes at a national level and also practical measures to help individuals, businesses and other stakeholders make a meaningful impact on the problem of food waste.
Our conversation focusses for some time on ReFED’s 2016 Roadmap - which laid out a route to a 20% reduction in food waste within a decade - and also the online platform that will supersede the Roadmap, the Insights Engine (launching October 2020). If you are interested in the topic I really recommend you download the Roadmap for yourself to look into their findings further.
We cover lots of other ground, including:
- The competitive advantage for businesses who adopt reduction policies
- Why the benefits of reducing food waste are still as available to brands as ever
- Why education has the biggest positive effect of all on the problem of food waste
- What businesses serving food can do to educate their customers and other stakeholders
Katy has spent her career working on strategies and systems to effectively reduce food waste at all levels and has authored industry and academic research on food waste and opportunities to address it. I found it really interesting and informative talking to her and I’m sure you will enjoy listening to the conversation too.
To take any of the points we discuss further, the best place to start would be the ReFED website:
https://www.refed.com/
This episode my guests are Alyson Parkes and Chiara Gianusso.
Together, they co-founded The Food Waste Project – a consultancy service dedicated to preventing and reducing food waste from workplace catering operations.
They focus on preventing food waste at source, rather than on recycling waste that has already occurred. Their approach is to measure what is thrown away in order to understand where food waste can be reduced...
and so prevent the larger environmental damage that recycling does not solve.
https://www.thefoodwasteproject.com
Naomi is Chief Executive of Chefs in Schools - a charity working to improve the health of children through better school food & education.
They realised that the closure of schools would have a disproportionate serious impact on those children for whom free school meals are the main or even only food they receive.
Now, Chefs in Schools are working to prevent children living in food insecure households in the UK from going hungry. They are providing free school meals to eligible pupils who are now at home and they’re helping schools to feed the children of key workers too.
Please enjoy they episode... if you want to find out more about their current focus and what they do under more normal circumstances please check out their website:
https://www.chefsinschools.org.uk
And if you are in a position to donate anything to help them continue their vital work please consider doing so here:
Chefs in Schools - Crowdfunder
Mark MCC is one of the leading Food, Drink and Hospitality brand and marketing minds in world. He has a huge amount of experience as a marketer within major companies, as the founder of the leading agency WE ARE Spectacular and also as the founder of C-Suite brand and marketing consultancy Supersonic Inc. He’s a successful podcaster too - his Mark McC Supersonic Food Marketing Podcast has reached number 20 in the iTunes business charts and is a regular Top 100 podcast.
He has been putting out a lot of free content since the pandemic first started to affect us here in the UK and has now ramped things up with the Pub and Restaurant Rebirth programme - a free series of in depth videos on Youtube to help operators make the most of the enforced downtime and be in the best possible position when they can start to trade again after the lockdown.
Check the free programme out now
The conversation is really intended to help all those who run a cafe, bar or restaurant and are having a hard time at the moment. We cover loads of stuff, but in particular:
- what operators can focus on right now
- how to market and run a delivery/takeaway service if you haven’t done it before
- what the best operators are currently doing
- how you can avoid making marketing or PR blunders that will hurt your business
If you know someone who runs a food and drink business and could do with some help please share this episode with them.
You can follow and engage with Mark on all the channels below:
- Spotify
- Supersonic Inc website
This episode my guests are Hilary Quartner, Nina Mullen and Lily Galef. Together, they co-founded Hilma – a company producing natural remedies backed by science.
They wanted to know why though most products in their homes had changed over the last few years (so they could pronounce the ingredients, read about their sourcing and so on) when it came to the medicine cabinet things were still very much the same as ever - brightly coloured tablets, sugary syrups, and so on and opaque labels.
They looked for the products they wanted, but found that the natural options weren’t backed by science. And the products backed by science didn’t hold up to their clean label standards.
So they decided to take natural remedies into the lab. What they created was not a drug or a vitamin, but a new standard – which they call the Clinical Herbal.
The conversation covered a lot of ground and I found it fascinating. Among other things we discussed:
- The gap between medicines and natural remedies that they are working to bridge
- How their idea became a reality
- How they got backing from the scientific community
- Their approach to ingredients and sourcing
- What their clinical trials aim to show
- What “backed by science” means to them
- How the industry suffers when people use such labels unethically
To look into what they are doing in more detail check out their website or their Instagram feed.
Amanda is CEO and co-founder of Ambrosia, a New York-based company that combines waste management with closed-loop manufacturing. They noted that the largest component of food waste is water and that inside the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted globally each year is 45 trillion gallons of water. So, using their specialised biorefining process, they take food waste, recover the water and upcycle the residual components into an array of products.
Ambrosia is currently launching their first product, Veles - a multi purpose cleaner made with ingredients derived entirely from waste materials. They are able to say it is the world’s first closed-loop cleaning product and that it is actually resource negative, which is quite amazing.
We really delve into the fascinating and creative approach Ambrosia are taking to address our massive food waste problem. The conversation covers loads of areas, including:
- How the idea to takle food waste in this way started
- Issues getting funding
- How the first product has been brought to market
- The accidental discovery that lead directly to Veles
- The types of food waste they are able to treat
- The costs involved in making a truly ethical cleaning product
- How they could partner with other producers to reduce the impact of their products
To look into Ambrosia, the cleaning product Veles, and the issues discussed in the episode in more detail have a look at the following:
- https://veles.com
- https://www.ambrosia.io
- The cost of a truly sustainable cleaning product
This episode is a conversation with Dr Lilly Da Gama – AKA The Food Waste Doctor.
Lilly is a Food Waste Consultant for the United Nations and an Associate Practitioner with the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment. As The Food Waste Doctor she operates an online platform for the discussion of food waste, its impacts, and tips for reducing waste in the home. She is an expert in the trade-offs between food packaging and food waste, and how the overall environmental impact of our food choices can be minimised.
In this episode we discuss:
- The attitude towards food waste she inherited from her family
- The environmental balance between food and packaging
- Why the modern food system uses packaging as it does.
- Why the energy levels used to produce food are FIVE TIMES larger than the those required to produce the packaging which preserves it.
- Which are the best/worst types of food in terms of environmental impact and what this means for the way they should be packaged
- Where packaging decisions take place in the supply chain
- Why focussing on the impact of plastic without considering food waste is a mistake
- How food organisations can improve their environmental impact
- Best ways to reduce wastage in the home
- How diners can reduce their environmental impact in restaurants
Solveiga is Founder & Director of Mimica whose company mission is to radically reduce unnecessary waste, starting with the food industry. Their first product, Mimica Touch, is a patented label that tells you exactly when food spoils inside a package. It is calibrated to degrade at the same rate as food and adjusts to conditions along the way.
Solveiga describes herself as an industrial designer who had a big idea and started Mimica entirely by accident. She has won a number of awards such as MIT Technology Review's Inventor of the Year and the UK James Dyson Award for her work.
In the episode we discuss:
- How the big idea and company came about
- What exactly Mimica Touch is and how it works
- How a biologically accurate food spoilage indicator could reduce food waste
- What inclusive design means
Serena is a Wellness Coach, Certified Yoga Teacher and Plant Based Nutrition Consultant who has studied nutrition for over ten years. She is the co-Founder of Whole Shift Wellness, which specializes in bespoke programs for time pressed professionals who want to look and feel their best. Their programmes are based around the 3 pillars of FOCUS, FOOD and FITNESS because, they believe, if one of these pillars is weak you simply can’t achieve your health and wellbeing goals.
In this episode we discuss:
- The most common wellness issues, what causes them and how they can be addressed
- The importance of taking a holistic approach and the role diet plays in wellness
- How they tailor their programmes for different clients and what that might look like when it comes to food
- Tips for someone thinking of reducing their meat intake
- The results that are possible when clients take ownership of their wellness
Paul is Director of the Sustainable Development Goal 2 Advocacy Hub. He worked for many years with World Vision and the UN’s World Food Programme.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs / Global Goals) are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Goal 2 is Zero Hunger. Specifically, the goal is to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030. Paul believes it can be done, but only if enough people join the conversation, think about the problems and become part of the solution.
The Advocacy Hub coordinates global campaigning and advocacy to achieve SDG2. It brings together NGOs, advocacy groups, civil society, the private sector and UN agencies to share expertise, ideas, and to collaborate on campaigns so that overall impact is increased.
In this conversation we discuss:
- Paul’s view of the UK’s attitude to food and sustainability
- What setting the goal to end hunger by 2030 has achieved
- How the Hub coordinates the conversation around ending hunger
- What the Hub actually does
- How it works to get distinct groups to engage with each other and work towards achieving zero hunger
- The guidance coming out of the Hub to help people in the food industry do their part towards ending world hunger
- What the Chef’s Manifesto is, how it came about and what it aims to achieve
- How people can get involved with the community working to achieve SDG2
If you would like to investigate the Hub’s work further, please check out some of the links below.
http://sdg2advocacyhub.org
http://www.sdg2advocacyhub.org/chefmanifesto#&gid=1&pid=1
www.chefsmanifesto.com
https://www.instagram.com/chefsmanifesto/?hl=en
Georgina is the founder of Pebble Magazine and Pebble Guides. Pebble magazine is all about stylish sustainable living and covers food, fashion, travel and design. Georgina has been an editor for 16 years and has always worked in food and travel magazines. She set up pebble after seeing the beginnings of a shift for people wanting a more sustainable life but being put off by 'hippyish' blogs or dry statistics. Georgina has written extensively about the many ways we can do good through food and we talk through a number of them in this wide-ranging and fascinating conversation.
Cemal is the founder of Change Please - a social enterprise partnership between Old Spike Roastery and The Big Issue that trains people who are homeless to be baristas. They pay each individual they employ the London Living Wage, provide extensive barista training, and provide housing, bank accounts, therapy support and then work to help them into onward employment. 10 days after starting with them their staff are no longer homeless.
They started with a few coffee carts in London and have expanded rapidly to include fixed sites, opened sites outside the capital, taken the concept to the US and now have their coffee sold in major national supermarkets across the UK too.
In this episode Cemal explains:
- how he is working to make Change Please the UK’s fourth-biggest coffee chain
- how the Change Please concept works internationally
- why the concept scales so well
- the experience that led him to walk away from a successful career to start this venture
- how it got off the ground in the first place
- how someone thinking of starting a business themselves can have a real social impact
- the organisations that can help a would-be social entrepreneur
There are a few links mentioned in the conversation that you can check out it you want to look into this further:
- www.changeplease.org
- www.socialenterprise.org.uk
- www.bigissueinvest.com
Courtney is the founder of Hungry Harvest (at the time of recording called Ungraded Produce), an ugly produce delivery service operating in the Raleigh-Durham of North Carolina. She founded the company after spotting an opportunity to divert food that normally goes unpicked or unsold due to its appearance to consumers that have difficulty accessing fresh produce.
Since 2016, Hungry Harvest has rescued over 40,000 lbs of ‘ugly’ and surplus produce from going to waste and donated 18,000 lbs of produce to local food banks. In 2017, Courtney won the 18th Annual Duke Startup Challenge and the Audience Choice Award for her work.
In this episode we discuss:
- How Courtney found her mission and started the company
- The networks and support that helped her get off the ground
- How they are able to offer a delivery service and still undercut commercial retailers by 30%-50%
- The realities of being a female entrepreneur in this industry
- The barriers and issues to overcome when growing this kind of venture and how the company is going to scale up from here
If you want to find out more about Hungry Harvest you can have a look at their website here, or follow them on social media:
Our guest this week is with Maryn McKenna - an award winning independent journalist and an author who specialises in public health, global health and food policy.
Maryn is a Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University - and the author of the 2017 bestseller “Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats”, which was released in the UK in February this year as “Plucked! The Truth About Chicken”.
Her 2015 TED Talk, "What do we do when antibiotics don't work any more?", has been viewed more than 1.5 million times and translated into 33 languages
In this episode we discuss:
- How and why antibiotic resistance occurs
- What a world without the antibiotics we rely on would look like
- The link between food and antibiotic resistance
- How antibiotics are used in meat farming
- Why they are used largely in healthy animals
- The farming practices that are needed if antibiotic use is to be reduced
- How we can help the situation as consumers and as food industry professionals
If you are interested in the issues raised and would like to look into them more deeply, the place to begin is Maryn’s fantastic book: Plucked!
There are also a lot of resources, further reading etc available on her website
Peter is Programme Director at Manomet - a non-profit organisation based in New England that applies science and engages people to sustain our world. Peter has designed sustainability programs for 30 years, working with Outward Bound, Government, and Sustainability non-profits.
He developed the first and only grocery sustainability system in the US, whereby grocery stores reduce their environmental footprint and achieve Grocery Stewardship Certification through a structured programme of continuous improvement and engagement.
In this episode we discuss:
- The vital role grocery stores have to play in creating a more sustainable food system
- The role of the grocery store in the community
- How waste occurs in a typical grocery store
- The financial impact of that waste and the potential savings to operators
- The quick fixes and longer term strategies to address waste
- How to engage consumers to think more deeply about the food they purchase
The discussion gives loads of ideas about how to store, refrigerate and sell food more sustainably. Whether you work in food retail, run a café or simply want to improve the efficiency of your household kitchen there are some money and planet saving tips here for you!
Rob is Chief Toaster at Toast Ale which brews beer using surplus bread that would otherwise go to waste and donates all profits to the charity Feedback to fight against food waste at every level of the food system.
Prior to leading Toast, Rob was Director of Ashoka UK, where he worked alongside and supported some of the world's most remarkable social innovators. He is also a serial social entrepreneur who has founded several social change organisations both in the UK and in Africa.
In this episode we discuss:
- How Rob's early success as a social entrepreneur helps him see the potential in other startups
- Why Toast Ale stood out as a perfect social venture
- How enormous surpluses of bread accumulate in our food systems and why it is such a huge problem
- How Toast Ale is working to address this waste in the UK and globally
- The partnerships that have helped Toast to grow so quickly
- Why they chose to become a B-Corporation and whether Rob would recommend it for other companies
- What the future holds for Toast Ale
This was a particularly fun conversation (I can confirm the products are delicious!) and an extremely interesting one too. For anyone looking to startup a social enterprise or ethically-motivated company this is essential listening.
Evan is a Director at Flower City Pickers in Rochester in western New York state. Founded in January 2015, Flower City Pickers is a volunteer organisation that redistributes leftover and discarded produce from Rochester's Public Market to local homeless shelters, halfway houses, soup kitchens, food pantries, and other organizations that need food. Since they started, they have prevented over 600,000 pounds of food from going to landfill (which is around 270 tonnes for UK listeners).
In this episode we chat about how Flower City Pickers came to be, how they operate and how they have grown in the 3 years since they were founded. Evan has a clear passion for sustainability and ethical practices has a lot to say about the impact an organisation like FCP can have, as well as the reasons that organisation like theirs are needed in the first place. This was a really interesting conversation for me and I think it will be particularly good for those listeners with an interest in grass roots ethical movements.
* A quick note about the audio: we spoke via an online platform and unfortunately there are some issues with the quality of the recording. The problems are particularly noticable at the start of the conversation, but the recording clears up as it carries on and is perfect for the last 30 minutes or so. I apologise and hope that you stick with it! If you're finding it too annoying you can skip to about the 40 minute mark and listen from there *
Rachel is head chef at The Good Egg in Kingly Court and has worked across the industry from pop-ups to private events, at street food stalls, and in catering as well as restaurants.
In 2015 she took a break from the kitchen and completed a masters degree in Food Anthropology. We start the conversation by delving into the reasons she wanted to study that course in particular, what she learnt and what she took from it back into the kitchen. We talk in quite a bit of depth about kitchen culture and the ways in which that is changing in response to both external and interal pressures. Towards the end of the conversation we talk quite a bit about the difficulty getting people into the industry, the reasons for that, and how immigration policy in future might affect it.
This is a really thought provoking conversation with someone who has worked widely in the industry and has spent time thinking about food generally and its cultural impact in particular. One of the key themes in Doing Good Through Food has been that food - what you choose to eat, how you eat it - says something about who you are and this conversation develops that idea in a number of really interesting ways. One of the main takeaways is that when it comes to the decisions we make in food, context is everything and most positions can be understood whether we agree with them or not.
Mark is the Founder of the Food Initiative, a catering organisation that supports sustainable farming practices. He describes himself as an environmentalist, turned chef in high-end French restaurants, turned street food trader, turned entrepreneur. He is passionate about the environmental impact of food and through all those different roles he has approached the impact of food in a variety of ways.
This conversation is a really fascinating dive into what it really takes to achieve sustainable and ethical practices in a retail food business. We talk in quite a bit of depth about how Mark built the supply chain for his business and why getting out to meet the farmers and growers was so important. We also delve into the detail of how Mark set up both his entrepreneurial ventures, how the UK street food market has changed since he set up and the advice he would give to people thinking of starting up now.
There's loads of interest here for anyone who cares about the environmental impact of the food they purchase and consume when away from home. The conversation has some absolutely invaluable advice for anyone thinking of setting up a food business of their own though - if that's you then listen carefully!
Tim is the head teacher of Charlton Manor Primary School in Greenwich, a school that places particular emphasis on incorporating food and cooking in the wider curriculum and is regarded internationally as exemplary for its approach to food.
As well as his role as head teacher, Tim is one of the 20 individuals who make up the London Food Board, which advises the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority on the food matters that affect Londoners. He is also is a member of the School Food Plan Alliance and also Co-founder and Chair of Roots4Life, a charity focused on food education.
Tim cares deeply about education and believes that food has an important role to play in the education and development of children. Our conversation focusses on how exactly this belief underpins the way they teach children at Charlton Manor Primary School. I found it fascinating and genuinely inspirational - Tim has a lot to say about why a good relationship with food is so important to our children's development and how it affects their futures, but also about how such a positive relationship can be fostered. I have been trying out some of the things we discuss with my own son and can confirm they have an amazing effect!
If you are keen to find out more about Charlton Manor and their amazing approach to food I really encourage you to have a look at their website: www.charltonmanorprimary.co.uk
Talia is the manager of Sadeh Farm, which is rooted in Jewish values and aims to cultivate community as well as food.
Sadeh has a strong sense of mission. Key aspects include helping disconnected Jews to re-engage with their traditions through farming, working with other communities on the common goal of preserving the environment, and inspiring positive social action through teaching Jewish values in the context of the land.
The conversation delves into what a Jewish farm actually is, what the traditions Sadeh hopes to re-invigorate involve (how Jewish law requires land to be treated, for example), why it is so important to grow your own food and much more. We have talked about a number of the social and environmental aims in other episiodes, but never within the context of a religion, which I found really interesting.
If you enjoy the discussion and want to find out more, I encourage you to check out Sadeh's website: www.sadehfarm.co.uk
Will is the founder of Greensand Ridge Distillery - a distillery with a mission.
He asked, how do you take an energy intensive process like distilling and not only reduce its environmental footprint, but have it make a positive contribution to sustainability? His answer involved use of advanced technology and 100% renewable energy, but also working with local farmers to reduce food waste at the farm gate by fermenting and distilling quality produce that supermarkets won't take.
This conversation covers quite a bit of ground including how such a resouce-intesive process as distilling can be made more sustainable, how Will diverts food suplus from the farm gate to use in his spirits and why the waste is there in the first place. We also talk about Will's journey out of the city and into craft distilling, and why getting past the idea of a traditional retirement was important to make that happen.
The episode has loads of interesting information for anyone interested in sustainable businesses, unusual ways of addressing food waste, or even in starting up a business of their own.
The distillery has a great website and a fantastic instagram page too, both of which I encourage you to have a look at.
Amelia is a culinary consultant and a food and travel writer. She worked for the World Food Programme for 5 years before taking a break to study for a masters in International Law. While studying she founded her company, Cook First.
She had experienced how a nutritious diet is vital to leading a healthy and active life. She also realised that cooking can be positive and empowering and that learning to cook can change a person's life for the better. She turned her passion for food towards directly helping people become confident in the kitchen and empowered in their lives as a result.
Cook First provides consultancy for catering businesses and workshops for individuals to show how to create wholesome, nourishing meals and become mindful of what you eat. The company also puts huge emphasis on teaching people how to minimise food waste, and make the most out of the food they buy. Amelia believes that food is one of the best ways to build friendships and relationships.. as she puts it: "How better to nourish friendships than through the conviviality and conversation over a delicious, nutritious meal? But you need to know how to cook first"
Her website has much more detail about the company's mission, as well as a link to her blog where you can find Amelia's nutritious and thrifty receipes. I really encourage you to check it out for yourself:
www.cookfirst.co.uk
Max is a food futurist, carrying out research in the Food Futures Lab at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto California. The Lab looks for innovations that have the potential to reinvent our global food system and create the futures people want. They help people take a long-term view about the future of food - with all the uncertainty that entails. Max’s research at the institute is about driving systems-level change to create a more healthy, humane, and sustainable food future.
Max studied at philosophy at Kenyon College in Ohio and ethics at Oxford University… he is also a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, an international think-tank that pioneers ethical perspectives on animals and is passionate about how we might move to a post-animal bioeconomy.
The episode covers a lot of ground including food systems, sustainability and food waste - in particular, why what we waste is more important than how much.
We refer to an article Max wrote during the conversation and you can read it in full for yourself here.
If you want to find out more about the Institute for the Future and the work they do, their website is http://www.iftf.org
Our guest this episode is Mallen Baker, a writer, speaker and strategic advisor on corporate social responsibility and responsible marketing. He is also a blogger and podcaster who produces The Respectful Business Blog, Respectful Business Podcast and more recently the Delicious and Sustainable Blog.
Our conversation covers a lot of topics, but the key theme is the one Mallen has spent the majority of his career focussing on - namely, how to make the world better by positively affecting as many people as possible.
Mallen was involved in politics and campaigning early in his career, but came to realise that an adversarial, "us versus them" mentality is at best ineffective in getting people to change and and often totally counter-productive. Instead, he found, genuinely engaging with institutions and the people within them leads to profoundly better outcomes.
This episode will be hugely interesting to anyone hoping to change something for the better, either within or through the world of food. I highly recommend checking out Mallen's blogs and his podcast if you enjoy the discussion:
- Respectful Business Blog
- Respectful Business Podcast
- Delicious & Sustainable
Dayna is the UK Director of Fair Food Forager – an international organisation aiming to change the way the world eats by helping people make ethical food decisions. They make it easier to support good businesses and to understand the impact of what we buy, and who we buy it from.
They do this by listing food businesses that meet various ethical criteria and promoting them to an engaged audience online, via a website and an app (both called Fair Food Forager) which is free to join and free to use. Around that there is a growing community of people who list the ethical food businesses they have discovered and provide reviews so other users can find more great, ethical food businesses wherever they are.
They describe themselves as a megaphone for ethical businesses, which I think is great! So, give the conversation a listen, then check out their app on the Google and Apple stores, or take a look at their website - fairfoodforager.com to find tasty, healthy and responsibly made food.
This episiode the guest is Giles Gibbons. He is the founder and CEO of Good Business and founder and Director of the Sustainable Restaurant Association.
Good Business is a consultancy that helps organisations to be more progressive. Their work covers a wide range of areas including behaviour change campaigns, consumer research projects, and social brand marketing campaigns but is always about driving positive change for organisations and the society of which they are part.
The Sustainable Restaurant Association was set up out of the belief that meals served out of home can not only taste good, but do good too. The association provides consultancy, training and industry leading benchmarking to the food service sector, to help make that happen. It also gave birth to the Food Made Good community which connects chefs, restaurateurs, marketers, foodies and social changers to help make food good. Each month they focus on a single mission to make it easy for food businesses to come together and work towards a shared goal.
In the conversation we talk about how Good Business helps companies uncover their unique social value and the kinds of questions companies can ask to start identifying it themselves. We discuss the formation of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, how it works to help food businesses operate more sustainably and ethically, and the organisation's aims for the future. We also talk about the factors that drive consumer choices and where ethical considerations come into the equation for customers - really fascinating (and potentially challenging!) stuff for anyone who wants to do good through food.
Iqbal is a highly successful London restauranteur, with a history of delivering social interventions through his businesses. He set up The Cinnamon Club in 2001, followed by Roast in 2005. He is about to open a third London restaurant, called Atticus, which will build on everything he has learned in his ventures to date and will have social value and purpose at its core from the outset.
In this episode, we talk about how Iqbal's vision of helping disadvantaged people through his businesses has developed, how this vision has helped him find the right kind of investors for his businesses and why helping people in this way is important to him. We also talk about his belief that businesses are better vehicles for addressing social problems than charities - a view he came to over years of close involvement with the voluntary sector, sitting on and in some cases chairing the boards of numerous Trusts.
Iqbal is a Director of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, has advised government for over a decade, regularly writes in national papers and appears on national television as an industry figure. He was awarded an MBE in recognition of his public work and his service to the restaurant industry. It was fascinating to sit down with him to discuss the state of the industry, the realities of issues like funding new ventures in the sector, and to hear his thoughts on and hopes for the future. This episode will be interesting to a really broad audience, but especially anyone hoping to set up a business in the UK food industry who has a strong social conscience.
This week our guest is FareShare CEO, Lindsay Boswell. FareShare are an amazing charity who save thousands of tonnes of food from going to waste ever year and use it to support vulnerable people. The food they redirect is turned into 500,000 meals each week by nearly 7,000 UK charities and community groups, including children's clubs, homeless hostels and refuges.
The episode covers the scale of the issues they are dealing with (less than 5% of surplus food that could be redirected actually is), how they achieve as much as they do already (their food was turned into 28.6 million meals last year alone) and how they can do more in the future. We talk about their partnerships with supermarkets, their advocacy on behalf of food producers and how much more advanced some other countries are in redistributing their food waste.
There are loads of fascinating insights into the UK food industry in this episode and it's a very accessible conversation. It will be of particular interest to those who want to understand the scale of wastage in the UK food industry and hear how it might be addressed.
This week I sat down with Joe Grossman of Patty & Bun. In a relatively short period of time he has taken Patty & Bun from a pop-up burger stall to a multi-site operation serving what many call the best burgers in London, with a loyal, almost cult-ish following.
Joe's a really interesting, fun guy and it was fascinating to talk about how Patty & Bun have achieved so much so quickly, how they developed their unique style and voice, how they built their following and how they will keep their authenticity as they grow in the future. We also talked about how important it is to him to build real relationships and communities around the businesses and above all to have fun doing it - as he put it, if you're not having fun then what's the point?
It was a great episode to record and will be fun to listen to too. For anyone with entrepreneurial aspirations though it could be incredibly useful, as Joe has a lot to say about the realities of building a business, the dangers of external investors, how to attract raving fans and lots more.
This is the second part of the conversation with Jamie Crummie. Jamie is the co-founder and director of Too Good To Go – an app that tackles food waste by making surplus food from restaurants, cafes and bakeries that would otherwise be thrown away available for collection at massively reduced prices.
If you haven't already heard it I would recommend listening to the first part of the conversation, which goes into detail about how the app works, where the inspiration came from, how the business started and begins to get into the scale of the issues it is trying to address. This episode picks up where the other finished and covers how the business works behind the scene, goes into more detail about the issues they hope to address and we finish by talking about their plans for the future.
Too Good To Go is live in cities and towns across the UK and is growing fast. If you would like to get particular restaurants, cafes and food retailers in your area involved in the scheme just contact the guys at Too Good To Go and let them know. The app is free to download for ios or Android and more details can be found on their website: toogoodtogo.co.uk. Get involved if you share their hope that one day all food produced will be food consumed.
The guest this episode is Jamie Crummie. He is the co-founder and director of Too Good To Go – an app that tackles food waste by making surplus food from restaurants, cafes and bakeries that would otherwise be thrown away available for collection at massively reduced prices.
Their mission is to save food, save money and save the planet and the vision driving them is of a world where all food produced is food consumed. The app is currently available in 6 countries, has 4500 partner stores, and has saved 1.6m meals from being binned while avoiding over 3000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Too Good To Go is already live in numerous cities and towns across the UK and is growing fast. The app is free to download on iTunes or Google Play and more details can be found on their website: toogoodtogo.co.uk
Our conversation ran for quite a while so I decided to release it in 2 installments as a bit of an experiment. This first part goes into detail about how the app works, where the inspiration came from, how the business started and begins to get into the scale of the issues it is trying to address. The rest of the conversation will be released next week, so tune in then to hear their plans for the future and much more.
This episod our guest is Alice Gilsenan. She is the co-founder and marketing director of Tiny Leaf – a zero waste restaurant in London serving vegetarian, vegan and organic food. The restaurant takes surplus food from local suppliers and bases a vegetarian and vegan menu around the food they receive. The menu changes on a daily basis depending on the food available which also helps ensure waste is minimised. Anything that cannot be used in the restaurant is then composted, recycled or donated to local food banks if possible – so there really is nothing wasted at all.
The conversation covers where the inspiration came from to start the restaurant, how exactly the model works, what zero waste means to Tiny Leaf and why it was also important for them to deliver solely vegan, vegetarian and organic food. We also talk about the scale of the problems they are trying to address, how the business might develop in the future and which other indviduals and businesses are doing great work in similar areas.
It's a fascinating conversation that will be of particular relevance to anyone who has an interest in reducing food waste, especially within the food industry, but also to anyone who is interested in sustainability more generally.
This episode is a bit different... it's the recording of my appearance on another podcast a few weeks ago. I decided to release it on Doing Good Through Food partly because I just enjoyed the conversation, but mainly as it went into quite a lot of detail about who I am, why I set up the podcast and where I intend to take it. I said some of this briefly in the first episode of the show, but a lot of the ideas were newly formed and I was also very nervous! I think that, for those that are interested, the discussion in this episode gives a lot more clarity and detail about how I see the show developing in particular.
I hope you find it interesting and as ever I would love to hear what you think. As I say in the audio introduction, this is longer than any episode I have recorded so far and I would be really interested to know if it is too much for you, or whether you enjoy the longer discussion.
The show I was a guest on is called RootED, hosted by Remi Johnson. Link here. There are lots of great interviews there so I encourage you to check it out.
Next week we will be back to the usual format, with me asking the questions and hearing all about what Doing Good Through Food means to our latest guest. I look forward to seeing you then.
In this episode our guests are Layla Gassabi & Josh Littlejohn.
Layla is co-owner and director of the Maison Bleue Restaurant group, in Edinburgh. Josh co-founded the Social Bite group of sandwich shops, which are found in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Social Bite also runs two staff canteens in Edinburgh and a corporate catering businesses. Social Bite is a social business, which donates all its profits to charity and exists to tackle homelessness in Scotland.
Social Bite and Maison Bleue have joined forces to create Social Bite Restaurants and bring the Social Bite ethos into a restaurant environment. In this episode we discuss how the partnership was formed, what exactly the mission is and how they have built a sustainable social business in the catering sector. There is loads of practical advice about how the business works, the lessons they have learnt and how operating in cafes and restaurants presents different challenges. There is also a huge amount of inspiration and a strong message that it is possible to make a real difference in the world when the purpose of business is not only maximising profit.
Find out more about their great work here:
http://social-bite.co.uk
http://home-restaurant.co.uk
https://www.sleepinthepark.co.uk
Andrez is the founder of The Liminality Group, an organisation dedicated to preventing and reducing offending among children and young people across the United Kingdom. He is also a musician and he found success in the 1990s as part of the renowned British RnB band Damage, selling over 2 million records and touring the world.
Since 2005, Andrez has dedicated his life to working with young people and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds and those at risk of offending. He holds a First Class combined degree in Criminology and Sociology and spent a decade as a youth justice practitioner, specialising in resettlement of young people leaving custody.
Andrez founded The Liminality Group in 2011 to design, develop and deliver programmes to target the huge range of factors associated with offending. His work in this field has been recognised by multiple bodies, not least the Ministry of Justice.
Part of The Liminality Group’s work is providing opportunities for private sector organisations and individuals to support and invest in the future of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and communities. Recently they have partnered with the street food market operators KERB to provide work placements preparing food and serving the public which is how we came to hear of them.
In this episode we discuss how Andrez found his calling, how he engages with children and young people to show them the consequences of making bad choices, the other options available to them, and the ways in which the catering industry can help to support this important work. It is a fascinating and engaging conversation full of great, practical takeaways. It will speak particularly to those who feel that anyone can make a bad decision and that children always deserve love, support and a second chance.
Simon is an award winning chef and social entrepreneur. He began as an apprentice chef at the Academie Culinaire de France, and during his career he worked on 5-star cruise ships, cooked for Saudi princes, won a Michelin star as part of the Chewton Glen team and worked at prestigious restaurants such as Mosimann's among others. His success as a chef was recognised in 2013 when he was awarded the Craft Guild of Chefs award.
His life took a turn when in 2004 he decided to volunteer in Sri Lanka, in the aftermath of the tsunami. He returned to the UK with a mission to continue helping others and over the next 6 years he worked tirelessly to create Beyond Food, a charity that uses food as a catalyst to help vulnerable people move away from homelessness and into stable employment. In 2010 he spearheaded a social enterprise and with partners he located the charity and employment scheme in a restaurant. That restaurant, the Brigade, opened its doors in 2011 and since has inspired over 1,200 people, many of whom were sleeping rough when they joined the programme, to a life beyond homelessness.
In this episode we discuss how Simon found his mission and then refocussed his life and career on fulfilling it. Simon explains how he found the partners he needed to make his vision a reality, how the employment programmes operate, and how the different elements of the social enterprise now work together. This is Doing Good Through Food in a very direct and inspiring way and it is a fascinating episode. Anyone looking for the motivation to make a meaningful change in their career will find plenty of it here!
Ben started as a chef, working for Raymond Blanc and cooking on private yachts, before founding the catering company Benugo in 1998. The company started with a single café in Clerkenwell and have grown their portfolio to around 80 locations, employing approximately 2000 people and achieving annual turnover in excess of £100m.
Benugo now operates on the high street, on company premises, in parks and in museums, as well as running a delivery service for workers in London and providing catering for events. They also run the commercial side of the House of St Barnabus, a not-for-profit private members club and charity whose purpose is to break the cycle of homelessness and help the people they support back into work.
In this episode we discuss how Benugo started out, how they grew and how they stayed true to their vision while doing it. Essential listening for anyone in the industry with entrepreneurial ambitions and a social conscience.
Andrew is a 50 year veteran of the UK catering industry. In this episode he talks about the role of catering in addressing the obesity crisis in the UK, the challenges of delivering fresh food in schools and hospitals, the successes of the School Food Trust and the Universal Infant Free School Meals programme, and the many reasons we need to source food ethically. He explains his role as a Restaurant Ambassador for The Clink Restaurant and how the restaurant has helped prisoners gain experience and qualifications while incarcerated, then supported them to find work when they are released. Andrew gives us his thoughts on finding talent and how the industry will need to change its approach to training to meet staffing challenges post-Brexit. Finally, Andrew shares the hardest experience of his career and how he rebuilt himself in the wake of it to get where he is today - his message is that things are never as dark as they seem, you should never be afraid to ask for help and that there is always reason to hope.
Hello and welcome to Doing Good Through Food – a show hosted by Alex Coffin all about how food can be a force for good in the world.