Photo by James Lee on Flickr.
This month’s Sustainability Forum will focus on two themes: sustainable food and social entrepreneurship. We invited Kate Hofman and Tom Webster, founders of the GrowUp urban farm. They used crowd funding to raise more than £16.000 for their social business through a Kickstarter campaign and successfully built a prototype fish and salad farm in a shipping container box near London Bridge, showcasing new techniques for sustainable food production in the city.
Food sustainability at King’s
We hope their story will inspire many students and staff to start up their own food sustainability projects. Similarly, we would like to offer a platform for suggestions and ideas on the food we provide at King’s. This academic year all catering was moved in-house to King’s Food, which allows us to improve on different aspects that impact our ecological footprint. The sustainability team met with King’s Food to see if we can work towards the Soil Association Catering Mark, which is “an independent endorsement that food providers are taking steps to improve the food they serve, using fresh ingredients which are free from undesirable additives and GM, and better for animal welfare” (more info here). Accreditation schemes such as the catering mark are a way to analyse all aspects of food sustainability in our canteens: from choosing where supplies come from to what is on our menus.
We also want to inform people on making healthy and sustainable food choices and raise awareness of the fantastic campaigns we already support, such as the Ugly Fish Friday initiative and the bring-your-own-mug discount. Achieving the catering mark will help to improve food provenance and traceability and promote the use of seasonal and sustainable ingredients.
Share your ideas
At last month’s forum we noticed many students are passionate about what foods (and drinks!) are served in King’s Food outlets. This evening will therefore offer an opportunity to share your ideas, meet like-minded people and think of ways to improve our food sustainability.
The GrowUp Box
