FEATURE: SUSTAINABILITY
Tony’s Chocolonely is one of very few chocolate manufacturers to be completely transparent about their supply chain. In the value chain, farmers, their families, and their communities should all benefit from their association with the company manufacturing your ingredients. Shortening your supply chain, wherever possible, will enable you to gain greater transparency and visibility of your product sourcing.
To help balance cost considerations, schools should use an expert procurement company to help to bridge the gap between sustainability and financial prudence.
Mike says that “With a sustainable and responsible approach to food procurement, schools can significantly reduce their catering operations’ carbon footprint through practical and cost-effective methods”. Firstly, use carbon impact assessment technology such as Foodsteps for your recipes and menus – this removes some of the complexity of measuring supply chain emissions and can aid sustainable sourcing. It highlights, for example, that 1kg beef emits the equivalent of 60kg of carbon dioxide, whereas 1kg of root vegetables is 150 times less carbon-intensive than beef, with only 400g of carbon dioxide. Mike explains that “With strong evidence to support the overconsumption of meat being harmful to human and environmental health, adopting a more plant-based diet will make food systems more sustainable. For consumers to keep within their planetary boundaries (i.e. no net environmental damage), no more than 98g of red meat and 203g of poultry should be consumed weekly.”
Reducing red and processed meat consumption results in the largest decrease in environmental impacts and carbon footprints, so it’s the best move you can make for sustainability.
By removing 50% of the beef in a cottage pie, for example, and replacing it with lentils, school catering teams can reduce the carbon impact by 41% and achieve a massive 70% cost saving!
Ruminant alternatives are likely to make better use of your budgets too, as they are often a more cost-effective version. As a real-world example, Hayden and Mike worked closely with Epsom College to reduce their carbon emissions. The Director of Catering and her team wanted to benefit from truly informed choices and greater food supply-chain
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transparency to reduce the carbon impact of the food and catering at Epsom College and involve everyone in these improvements. They reviewed their menus with allmanhall’s support and then input and analysed 1000 recipes through the Foodsteps platform. Those recipes with a lower carbon impact were designated as ‘Hero Dishes’ and promoted to the pupils as more sustainable options. Other recipes were re-engineered to reduce their carbon impact whilst maintaining the taste, appeal and nutritional benefit of these dishes. Hayden says “One of the most effective methods of significantly reducing the carbon impact of a recipe is to reduce or replace the high-intensity meat content, especially beef and lamb. The Epsom College chefs managed to do just this, for example, by reducing the lamb content of a curry dish from 120kg to 80kg through the addition of sweet potatoes and peppers.”
“We managed to achieve the reduction in meat content without the majority of pupils noticing. Wherever there is a ‘wet dish’ you can replace the meat with a selection of creatively prepared vegetables or pulses”, said Andy Trowell, Executive Head Chef at Epsom College. And what was the result of their journey towards carbon reduction? Mike worked
with the catering team to track their carbon emissions and found that “The average carbon intensity of Epsom College’s recipes is currently 5.21kg CO2e/kg, and 23% of their recipes have Very Low carbon impact scores.” Taking this one step further, allmanhall and Epsom College worked closely in the spring of 2024, together with Redefine Meat, to develop and trial a new product: The Brighter Burger. The Brighter Burger has 6% of the carbon equivalent impact of a standard beef burger, with impressive nutrition credentials (5g of fibre per patty compared to only 1g for a standard beef patty) and a great taste. This went down very well with pupils, of whom 74% said they would like to see it featured on menus. And it’s not just about introducing new ingredients to your menu. Using up what you already have in your kitchen is of paramount importance when almost a third of all the food produced globally is never eaten. This means over 30% of your food budget is going straight into the bin! Food waste is also having a real impact on climate change, contributing almost 10% of total man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing food waste will instantly save you money and help the planet. By considering ways the food is stored, prepared, and served, waste is minimised. Understand your supply chains (not just the last mile supplier) through sustainability dashboards which deliver full traceability and transparency of your food.
By saving money in your food procurement, you can invest those savings into more ethical and sustainable food from innovative producers such as Wildfarmed. Using regenerative farming techniques to grow the wheat for their flour, the Wildfarmed team helps to develop resilient ecosystems by encouraging pollinators and reducing chemical runoff which adversely affects waterways.
The most important question you can ask your food supplier is whether they incorporate sustainability into their business model, and are they an effective agent for change? Watch out for greenwashing!
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