Sustainability

Sustainability is about managing not only the financial but also the social and environmental impact of a business.

Leon is proud to be a founding member of the Sustainable Restaurant Association. The association exists to help restaurants become more sustainable in the way they source their ingredients, engage with their local community and manage their impact on the environment. The restaurant industry has a huge impact on the food chain - restaurants account for almost half of what the British spend on food – and if we behave more sustainably, this will eventually trickle down through the food production system, with enormous consequences for the way we farm and eat.

In January 2010 Leon was audited by the Sustainable Restaurant Association and awarded a ‘silver’ mark. While we are pleased that this recognises some of the work we have done on sustainability, we know we have a long way to go. In particular this year we will be working on three things:

1. Measuring the water we use and conserving it.

2. Increasing our engagement with local communities.

3. Increasing the seasonal elements of our menu.

We are working on the details of these initiatives now, and will be publishing them at the end of the summer.

In addition we have published the result of our audit with some explanatory notes at the bottom of this page. We felt that, although it may leave us open to criticism, it was good to be open. Sustainability is not about being perfect, but about taking constant steps to improve. If you want a copy of the full detail behind the figures below please just ask for one at leon@leonrestaurants.co.uk.

Farms We Trust

One of our aims when we set up Leon was to serve food that we would eat and that we would be happy to feed our children. (It is sad that we even have to say this, but these are strange times food-wise). These are some of the things that we think are important:

• All our meat is British and to red tractor accreditation. We buy our meat from farms we trust and make at least two unannounced visit to farms each year.
• Any fish that we use is from sustainable shoals.
• All our eggs are free-range, including any egg used within the muffins, tarts, cakes etc. that our bakers make for us.
• We buy fair-trade and/or organic products where we think that there is a clear ethical, environmental or health benefit, and where we are able to sell the product at a price within reach of most people (not just the affluent few). So our coffee is fair-trade & organic (as well as contributing to the World Land Trust) and our milk, ice cream and porridge oats are organic.
• We aim to not buy any air-freighted or hot-housed products. We have not yet been able to find land-freighted herbs in winter (parsley for example which we buy from Israel) or green beans (from Kenya), but are working on it.
• Our food is free from additives or colourings.
• We aim to source 70% of our food from the UK (it’s currently slightly over 50%), and 90% from within the EU (which we’re very close to). We change our menu with the seasons and use seasonal produce because it is produced closer to home in a more sustainable manner (no hot-houses) – and it’s cheaper.

The Fish Finger Wrap

The fish in our fish finger wrap is sustainable and from Icelandic shoals – which are also monitored by Waitrose and the John Lewis Partnership. We have also had them checked out by The Sustainable Restaurant Association and they got the thumbs up. If you want more information, please email us at leon@leonrestaurants.co.uk

Recycling

Recycling has been a tricky one to crack. It is hard to find companies to recycle packaging with food waste on it, and separating different types of waste is another issue.

However, we can compost any food wasted in our kitchens, and ran a very successful trial last summer in our Strand restaurant (with the help of www.juniperfoodwaste.com) where we composted over a quarter of a tonne of waste in the first month. We have now extended this to four more of our restaurants (Carnaby Street, Cannon Street, Ludgate Circus and Regent Street). If the trial continues to be a success we will roll this out to all of our restaurants. We’ll let you know how it goes.

At the end of the day

Because we make our food fresh daily, we sometimes have some left overs. If you know of a charity near to any of our restaurants that would like to pick these up, please let Georgie know. georgie@leonrestaurants.co.uk

Sustainability Audit Results

Our scores for each section are shown in the table below.

We scored well (over 70%) on use of Local ingredients, Fish Stocks, engaging Suppliers to support our sustainability, treatment of our Employees, Health and Safety, responsible Marketing, managing Waste, and managing Resources.

We scored adequately (over 50%) on Organic / Fairtrade / Animal Welfare and Energy usage.

• On the Organic / Fairtrade / Animal welfare section we are very happy with the way we source, we know our farmers and take enormous care to ensure the meat has been well looked after. However, we are not fully organic hence the loss of marks. You can read full details of our meat sourcing policy above.
• On Energy, we use efficient equipment, but do not do enough to monitor and manage the energy we use as well as we could.
  As mentioned above, we scored less well on Seasonal Produce (44%), Water (35%) and Community (30%). We will be publishing a full plan on how we intend to deal with these issues at the end of the summer, but in summary this is what we need to do:
• The audit praised us for the seasonality of our menu. However, it said we could do more: for example, increasing the number of seasonal dishes vs. the Leon standards; making more use of pickles and chutneys made from UK fruit and vegetables when they are in glut; and increasing our bias towards local producers.
• While the audit recognise some good practices on water usage in the kitchen, we have no overall approach to measuring and reducing the usage of water at Leon.
• The auditors felt that we could do more to support local communities. For example: getting involved in Streetsmart, providing training by employing socially disadvantaged people; or giving people who work with us annual days (up to two a year) to do voluntary work of their choice.

A ‘silver’ score is a great start, but there is always room for improvement. We will keep you updated on our progress.

SUSTAINABILITY AUDIT SCORES IN FULL