Did you know that the food we eat accounts for up to 37 % of greenhouse gas emissions?
REfUSE, a café in Chester-le-Street which uses food destined for landfill, in collaboration with us, held a carbon costed restaurant night to help demonstrate the associated cost of the food we eat.
They served up a delicious meal with a difference, the price paid was based on the carbon emissions associated with each dish. The carbon emissions were calculated using the My Emissions website, which were converted into the car mile equivalent. People were then asked to pay £1 per car mile. Restaurant goers were given menu options which ranged in price from £5-£25 for a three course meal.
The CEO of the National Vegetarian Society, Richard McIlwain , attended the night and said:
The whole evening was a window into a future world and crucially a better world. The premise of the REfUSE Café is to create delicious recipes by sourcing surplus food from other local businesses and manufacturers. Food that would have been wasted. They also operate a ‘Pay as You Feel’ principle. Now they have gone a step further. Experimenting with menu pricing based on the carbon miles associated with each dish is pretty ground-breaking. The true cost of that steak was writ large on the evening menu, when viewed against the much cheaper veggie and vegan options. Nikki and all the team deserve great credit – not only for a fantastic and eye-opening evening – but for creating conversations that will carry forward within Durham and nationally, as the Vegetarian Society considers how including a carbon metric on menus could open many more people’s eyes to the benefits of going meat-free.
Attendees were asked if the pricing had influenced their choice and remarkably 100 % said it did; one restaurant goer said:
The food was delicious, and the message was powerful.
This work is part of a wider project in partnership with Sustain, Food for the Planet to investigate the impact of carbon pricing for food and how it changes the food choices we make. If you would like to get involved in this project, please get in touch.
