Stop Food Waste Day

Producing, moving and storing food uses energy and contributes to pollution, which in turn contributes to climate change. The global food system is estimated to contribute around 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. 33% of all food produced globally is lost or wasted every year. In the UK, this equates to 4.5 million tonnes of food each year that could have been eaten.

At CCT Venues, we aim to minimise our impact on the environment in every way possible. Food waste is a particularly important issue for us, especially because the events industry on the whole is known for being a big contributor to the food waste crisis. According to M&IT Magazine, a third of event planners admit to throwing away at least 15% of the food prepared for events.

Challenging the Stigma

We are aiming to change this stigma. We minimise our food wastage as much as possible and all of our by-products are weighed so that we can keep tabs on our wastage to ensure that we are constantly improving and becoming more efficient. Our current wastage equates to only 5% of food (which predominantly consists of fruit and vegetable peelings and egg shells etc.). This however, does not go into landfill, we work hard to make sure our waste is dealt with sustainably. For example, our food waste is converted into bio-fuel and our coffee waste gets converted into fuel logs!

We have introduced biodegradable products in all of our food service areas and have even invested in compostable bin liners for our food waste (otherwise it would be considered general waste). Time is spent sorting all of our waste to ensure everything is sent to the correct disposal facilities and can be adequately recycled.

We have consolidated our suppliers and strategically plan our orders to minimise the amount of trips needed to deliver our ingredients, thus reducing our carbon footprint.

We believe that waste reduction is everyone’s responsibility, which is why we have introduced compulsory staff training on waste as part of our induction programme, to ensure that everyone that works for CCT Venues is aware of their part to play in minimising waste. We even encourage staff to bring in refillable bottles rather than plastic bottles!