The Sustainable Restaurant Association: Pioneering environmental best practice in UK food service
Sustainability is a rapidly evolving topic, and it goes far beyond global warming. Getting your head around sustainable sourcing, ethical supply chains and nature-friendly practices is a lot – especially on top of running a busy café or restaurant business. Help is at hand from The Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA). Founded in 2010, the SRA has been at the forefront of driving sustainability within the hospitality sector, helping restaurants and foodservice businesses to operate more responsibly and sustainably. Central to its mission is the acclaimed Food Made Good standard, a comprehensive sustainability accreditation that has garnered respect and recognition across the industry.
A vision for sustainable hospitality
The SRA was established with a clear vision: to accelerate change toward an environmentally restorative and socially progressive hospitality sector. Recognising the profound impact that food production, preparation and consumption have on the planet and society, the SRA aims to empower businesses to make ethical and sustainable choices. Through education, resources and robust certification programmes, the SRA helps hospitality businesses to reduce their negative environmental impacts as well as becoming forces for positive change.
Setting the standard
The Food Made Good standard is the SRA’s flagship accreditation programme, designed to assess and recognise the sustainability efforts of restaurants and foodservice providers. This certification serves as a credible and comprehensive benchmark for sustainability, addressing a wide range of environmental, social and ethical factors. Businesses that earn the Food Made Good certification demonstrate a genuine commitment to sustainability across three pillars: Sourcing, Society and Environment.
The Certification Process
Achieving Food Made Good certification involves a rigorous assessment process. Restaurants undergo a detailed audit conducted by the SRA, which includes both qualitative and quantitative evaluations of their practices across the three pillars. The assessment covers a comprehensive range of criteria, from the provenance of ingredients to waste management systems and staff welfare policies.
Once the audit is complete, operators receive a score that reflects their sustainability performance. Those meeting the high standards required for certification are awarded the Food Made Good star rating, which they can proudly display to signal their commitment to sustainability to their customers. The certification is valid for one year, after which restaurants must undergo a reassessment to maintain their status, ensuring ongoing commitment to sustainable practices and allowing the scheme to adapt and remain relevant.
Impact and Benefits
The Food Made Good certification has a profound impact not only on the environment but also on the businesses themselves and the broader community. Certified restaurants often see tangible benefits such as increased customer loyalty, improved staff morale and enhanced brand reputation. For consumers, the certification provides a trusted guide to making more sustainable dining choices, fostering a culture of conscious consumption.
The SRA’s network offers a platform for collaboration and knowledge-sharing among like-minded businesses. This community-driven approach helps to spread best practice and drive collective progress within the industry.
Conclusion
The Sustainable Restaurant Association, through its Food Made Good certification, is transforming the hospitality sector into a more sustainable and socially responsible industry. By setting rigorous standards and providing robust support, the SRA is not only helping individual businesses to thrive sustainably but also contributing to a broader movement towards a healthier planet and a fairer society. For diners, choosing a Food Made Good-certified restaurant means supporting an establishment that cares deeply about its impact, offering a dining experience that is both delicious and conscientious.
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Who does this well?
Restaurants that score 50-59% are awarded a one-star Food Made Good rating; those scoring 60-69% get two stars and those scoring 70% or more get three stars. The brands below were all awarded three stars in their most recent assessment.
No.1 Harbourside
Bristol-based No.1 Harbourside scored a remarkable 92% across its three venues, based on its progress to becoming a net-zero-carbon business, its focus on local and seasonal sourcing, and its support for local artists.
CH&Co
High-end contract caterer CH&CO secured its three-star rating across its 900-strong estate of venues. Contributing to its continued and growing success in sustainability is a focus on cutting food waste, sustainable fish sourcing and treating staff well.
Peach Pubs
21-venue Peach Pubs aligned its sustainability initiatives under the Food Made Good standard in 2019 and was awarded Best Sustainable Pub Company at the The Morning Advertiser 2022 Publican Awards. It has structured its sustainability activities as ten straightforward promises that it makes to staff, customers, suppliers and stakeholders about how it will do business. These include celebrating local and seasonal produce, providing a range of menu options (including healthy and plant-based), and conserving natural resources.
Heartwood Collection
Heartwood Collection , the parent company of Brasserie Blanc and Heartwood Inns , secured its three-star rating in 2023. Its focus is on supply chain, having built long-term, trusting relationships with its key suppliers of meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. It also has a strong focus on minimising waste and increasing recycling, both in its head office and its three-dozen venues around the country.
JD Wetherspoon?
No-frills pub group J D Wetherspoon achieved its three-star accreditation on the back of its robust carbon footprint calculation and focus on reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Recognising there is always room for improvement, the group will now focus on improving its supply chain to boost its score for the ‘sourcing’ pillar next time around.
Sustainable Hospitality is produced by Rob Kidd, an independent consultant working in food and hospitality.
Current Chief Problem Solver @ Managed Language | Multilingual Marketing Execution
7 个月Rob Kidd, this is a great post, but, have you considered as part of the BCorp journey, food production. Have you looked in your garden, put your head out the window and listened. No birds, no bees, no insects. Without these there is no pollination and without that, no food, grain, grass, crops, flowers all will fail. BCorps like yours, indeed all need a food replenishment and food production initiative. Follow this link https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/action-for-insects. We have a crisis, no one is talking about, and yet everyone should!
Founder/ Partner of: The Mission Group PLC; Insureandgo; HomingPin; The Boundary Hotel in Shoreditch. 5 kids, 1 Ducati. Now working on massive startup: STREETIFY - Saving our high streets
8 个月The B Corp organisation is failing to deliver its aims to any meaningful level. Out of the 333 Million companies in the world (Statista 2023) just 8,254 ie 0.002% are B Corp. The B Corp organisation is deluding itself that they are having any meaningful impact globally. They have only an extreme bar to membership that minimises the number of companies that can achieve it, and requires so much measurement by B Corp that they are overwhelmed by the tiny % of the world’s companies that apply. Instead they should have a bronze, silver and (the existing) gold standards. Bronze could be just adopting the changes to a company’s Articles, requiring Directors to annually explain their level of performance in the range of areas set by B Corp. Silver could be a self-certified and published lower standard than the one currently required. Gold is the existing standard. This could deliver a vast increase in the number of responsible businesses in the world, without overloading the existing B Corp resource, moving B Corp from the virtue signalling mechanism that it is, to a meaningful contribution to inclusion, social responsibility, environmental responsibility and so on.