Kindle restaurant in Sophia Gardens incorporates sustainable practices throughout their business to help reduce food waste, and that’s only the beginning
Since opening in September, Kindle has been implementing sustainable methods such as recycling, cutting, and saving, to help overcome the issue of food wastage that stems from owning a food business.
Led by the husband and wife team of Phill and Deb Lewis, Kindle puts an emphasis on being a sustainable restaurant, and receives assistance from local farmers, suppliers, and gardeners, among others.
“We started weighing all our waste, and separately weighing all our food waste, prior to recycling. This helps us constantly monitor, reduce and set ourselves targets to keep on wasting as little as we possibly can,” says Phill Lewis.
He continues, “Through conversations with our suppliers and where we’re sourcing our food, we’re cutting out completely any waste before it even arrives at Kindle.”
Kindle’s philosophy is that their menu should be 70% vegetarian at all times, and this is done with a bit of help from their small garden, where they grow their own chard, chillies and herbs, to name a few.
“Everything’s been planted with a purpose, and we’re saving by using what we can. All of our staff food comes from the garden,” says Phill, who also places Kindle’s vegetable orders from an organic farm in Monmouth.
The restaurant is able to host up to 80 people at a time, priding themselves on the concept of sharing and trying bits of everything.
They serve small plates which not only retains heat through their cooking over fire method, but also naturally reduces food waste, which Phill describes as, “One of their driving forces.”
According to the report on the municipal waste management of local authorities in Wales in 2019-20, organic waste made up 33% of the ‘organic material’ collected for reuse, recycling, and composting, which includes food, green (garden) and other compostable waste. This number is higher than plastic, metal, and glass combined.