An array of cafes and restaurants across our locale are championing sustainability in their business, using local and seasonal produce when possible, creating zero food waste and leaving a lighter carbon footprint. Lisa Millard is listening

Stem & Glory

Award-winning plant-based restaurant (with a second one in London) became carbon negative in six months and was awarded ‘Heroes of Net Zero’ at COP26. Founder and trailblazer Louise Palmer-Masterton talks going green.

The beginning

As a plant-based brand we were already on a green journey and had a carbon emissions reduction strategy. What accelerated our journey was taking part in the London Mayor’s Better Futures+ programme in 2021 which was designed to help get smaller businesses to net zero. It was a great course, and it gave us the tools to calculate our emissions for both day to day activity and our build projects. We now have an in house sustainability officer and our strategy is two-fold – reduction and then offset, aiming to offset more that we meet, which is what makes us carbon negative. Not going to lie, it was a whole load of data capture and there are costs involved in the annual audit, but it is so worth it. It is also an education piece for our team and our customers.

The challenge

It’s honestly not been challenging, but there is a lot of data collection, so just a bit time consuming. Once we had a dedicated team member it was straighforward. Getting everyone on board has been easy, but changing habits requires constant maintenance.

The drive

What we were seeing going on around us didn’t seem enough. Net zero targets of 2030 and 2050 seemed way too late. We decided far more urgent action was needed. We all need to do our bit now, and we also need to reach out and help as many people as possible who may not be in such a fortunate position as we are.

Eliminating waste

We are definitely low waste and constantly looking for new ways to eliminate single use. We send 0% to landfill and work with a variety of partners on our waste recycling and repurposing.

Pipeline plans

We have a big British grown produce project, and our next book is focused on British grown and low carbon cuisine. Championing this is a huge part of pushing British agriculture towards growing foods that are fed to humans and not to animals. Animal agriculture is hugely damaging to our environment – we want to do our bit in changing that.

Green Tip: Change to 100% renewable energy and stop cooking on gas. That is the most significant first step. Then start to make changes in small steps, one at a time. Reduce waste, reduce single use where possible, use British grown produce where possible. Create more and better plant-based meals.

Station Road, Cambridge. See stemandglory.uk.

Cambridge Cookery School

Cambridge Cookery School and Café became the first zero food waste business in Cambridge in 2019. Founder Tine Roche shares her story.

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“I created the Cookery School in 2008, and the Café in 2015. My earlier career involved identifying and analysing global emerging trends for big food producers. I learned a huge amount from travelling in the US, mainly the west coast, and Scandinavia, where I grew up. Seasonality, local, foraged, grass fed, high welfare, free range, wild, low waste were all on my radar way before it became an established trend in the UK – and all those are intrinsically linked to sustainability. Working to be food waste free at the Cookery School and Café came from my gut feeling. There was no commercial or business-related strategy behind it. It was simply what I felt was a an ethical and indeed necessary way for me to work so I committed early on. I just try to take local, and therefore seasonal, and sustainable as my starting point for every dish I plan – the rest sort of falls in to place behind that.”

Green Tip: It’s all rooted in a solid understanding of seasonality and the kind of skills you might classify as old fashioned. What to use when and in a frugal way, how to honour it by cooking it in the simplest way and with minimum waste. One needs to work with a team of people and suppliers who are committed to and share a deep understanding for this. It can’t be a superficial decision and it’s not always making life easy.

Purbeck Road, Cambridge. See cambridgecookery.com

Hot Numbers

Hot Numbers is re-purposing its used coffee grinds. Owner Simon Fraser spills the beans.

Sustainable wins

We make lots of coffee every day and store up the amassing spent coffee grinds from our knock tubes on every site. This gets collected by the lovely Duncan at Cambridge Organic Food Company to distribute to Bio Bean to turn into coffee logs for home woodburning stoves. We are making many smaller changes wherever possible – we are currently considering the complete lifecycle of our product range. We have further to go and more to learn but we are ready for it.

Better understanding

Sustainability is extremely important to us as a business. One really driven member of our team Alexa Webb recently arranged a useful meeting with South Cambridgeshire Council waste services. We wanted to understand we could become better at separating our waste out and what exactly goes in what bin and why, as it can be so confusing for customers and staff. It really helped to understand what happens at both processing and landfill and what our local capabilities are. Alexa then created clear signage on products and bins within our store to better guide us all.

The challenges

It has traditionally been the case (and still is) that the difficulty lies in obtaining honest and current information on recycling/compostable options we demand from our products and the pros and cons of each product line. A product line you were led to believe was a good option may later appear not to be, so we are all growing in knowledge together as a business and a consumer.

Pipeline plans

We would like to lower our energy bills using solar roof panels at the Roastery and are looking into ground source heat pumps. We’d like to switch to an electric van when possible and to explore if we can re-purpose exhaust energy from our coffee roaster to re-heat the building.

Green Tip: I think it is important we work together on this and educate each other. It is the shared responsibility of businesses and their customers to talk more to one another and challenge what our beliefs are and how to make sustainability more visible and easier to implement.

Gwydir Street and Trumpington Street, Cambridge. The Roastery Café is at Shepreth. See hotnumberscoffee.co.uk

The Green Room Café

Alex King, general manager and Jess Miles, co-owner talk taking sustainable steps.

Raising awareness

We think that everyone has a responsibility to think about environmental impact. As a business with hundreds of customers visiting us every week, we also think that we can raise awareness about the issue too.

Eliminating waste

Food businesses create waste, and a lot of that is packaging. We’ve chosen several suppliers because they’ll deliver to us in reusable containers or easily recyclable materials, and we’ve invested in compostable packaging for our take-out too. The challenge is that, in many cases, the responsible thing to do is rarely the most cost effective – but we think it’s a worthwhile premium to reduce our impact.

Current wins

Things like using a renewable electricity supplier, not using gas at all, having lots of suppliers that deliver in reusable containers (coffee, bread, even vodka and gin) and not having avocado on our menu. Oh, and our menus are printed on card that is made from 50% recycled coffee cups.

Pipeline plans

The Too Good To Go initiative, where unsold and surplus food is sold off via an app at a heavily reduced price, is really interesting. We’ll also make sustainability something we measure ourselves on, as a prompt to continually look for ways we can improve. We’re planning a series of events entirely around being a responsible and sustainable business, working with partners and other food businesses to raise awareness and encourage collaboration. We’re hoping to hold the first event in the spring, and as well as having guests in The Green Room, we’ll also stream it to an online audience too.

Green Tip: Anything and everything you do can make a difference, so it doesn’t need to be about changing everything overnight, it’s about a series of decisions and changes over time that all add up to something bigger. Starting small is better than not starting at all.

High Street, Sawston, Cambridge. See @thegreenroom.cafe

The Garden Café and the Garden Kitchen

Andrew Smith, who runs three eateries across Cambridge, on making best choices.

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“Sustainability has been a core value of Garden Kitchen since the company began in 2005. We have always tried to make environmentally friendly choices when deciding on takeaway packaging – currently all our disposables are biodegradable. Customers are welcome to use their reusable cups too. We no longer sell single use plastic bottles, the last of which were our water bottles, but we switched to cans in 2020. Our water comes from 'ONE WATER' which reinvest profits to fund safe drinking water for nations around the world. We source British fruit and vegetables whenever possible and change our menus seasonally. Our coffee is single origin and roasted locally and the menu at two of our sites is 100% vegetarian. Our menu at the Botanic Garden no longer has seafood and is 70% vegetarian. We also have a cargo bike to run supplies between our sites in Cambridge.”

Cambridge University Botanic Garden and Mill Road, and Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. See thegardenkitchen.uk