Fooditude's story
We are Fooditude and we've been working to change the traditional contract-catering market since 2005, with our unique business model that combines fresh, seasonal food cooked from scratch with a delivery service.
Back in 2014, we recognised that as a food business we were taking far more from the environment than we restored. We started making sustainable changes within the business and became members of the Sustainable Restaurant Association. However, we felt the need for making a bigger, measurable impact, and we joined Planet Mark in 2019. In our first year, we made a 30% reduction in carbon emissions on a per meal basis. In 2021, owing to the effects of the pandemic and lower trading volumes, we have made an absolute reduction of 60%. However, looking at it in per meal terms, there hasn't been a reduction – this has led us to identify and address areas for improvements in 2021-22
Building sustainable practices is not an overnight process, it requires buy-in from every area of the business and constant evaluation. One of our key areas of focus is food waste – it fuels around 1/3 of all global emissions, so it's a really important area to tackle. We are signed up to waste reduction charity WRAP's food waste reduction roadmap and are aiming to cut our food waste by 50% by 2030 (although we believe we will achieve this sooner). We have already reduced our food waste from 36% to 25% since 2019. We've also refined our processes to ensure we only order the ingredients we need, and we've invested in machines that break down food waste with enzymes that we can dispose of as liquid.
As a business, we're committed to recycling 100% of our cardboard, glass, paper, plastic, cooking oil, and coffee grounds as well as increasing our focus on vegan options throughout our menus. Our whole approach is based on continuous improvement and we share our sustainability and corporate social responsibility policy with our employees, customers, suppliers, and other partners.
Useful learnings from Fooditude
It's always about doing the right thing, but it's also about including and understanding the needs of your customers.
Fooditude's metrics
Amount of food waste.
Carbon reduction as an organisation and per meal.
