As part of a company-wide commitment to minimising its environmental footprint and leaving a positive impact on the planet, food service business Marmadukes partnered with ReFood to recycle its unavoidable food waste. Thanks to the agreement, the company has slashed its waste management costs and eliminated food waste to landfill.
Marmadukes was established in 2011 by husband and wife team Clare and Tim Nye. The journey started with a café on Norfolk Row in the heart of Sheffield, but the company has since continued to expand. Indeed, the family now runs three cafés, a sourdough bakery and pastry kitchen spread out across the historic city, each of which are revered by residents and tourists alike.
Rather than just another café, the idea behind Marmadukes was to create an experience, with best-in-class produce sitting at the heart. From speciality coffee and homemade bread, to sustainably sourced ingredients boasting minimal food miles, the menus have been crafted with care, creativity and meticulous attention to detail.
Every ingredient is painstakingly chosen, beautifully presented and locally procured, while the friendly and knowledgeable team makes every dining experience special. This unique approach has helped the brand to quickly build a reputation for excellence among the local community.
But while quality is considered king, Marmadukes is committed to maintaining a minimal environmental impact. Every decision and every dish is made with this in mind. As such, everything that the business uses – from WILDFARMED flour, direct trade speciality coffee beans and even cleaning products – are chosen based on their environmental footprint and green credentials.
Sustainability has fast become a way of life for Marmadukes, which means that the team is always on the lookout for innovative solutions to further instil this commitment across the business. One area that required focus was the unavoidable food waste arising from daily operations. Be this shells, bones and gristle, spoiled produce or plate scrapings, unavoidable waste is common in food service businesses, but its environmental consequences are significant.
But with no solution to manage this waste, the vast majority was ending up in the residual waste stream and, by proxy, landfill. The team therefore turned to ReFood, the UK’s leading food waste recycler, to roll-out a more environmentally-friendly solution.
Working with cafés, restaurants, hotels and other food supply chain businesses across the UK, ReFood collects more than 400,000 tonnes of food and drink waste every year, recycling it to create renewable energy and biofertiliser at its state-of-the-art anaerobic digestion (AD) sites in Dagenham, Doncaster and Widnes.
The AD process captures biogas produced during the natural degradation of food. This biogas can be combusted to produce renewable electricity, or further processed and injected directly into the National Gas Grid. The leftover residue from the AD process can be used as a sustainable fertiliser; retaining beneficial nutrients and reintroducing them to the beginning of the food supply chain.
For Marmadukes, partnering with ReFood has allowed the business to eliminate the landfilling of food waste and cut its waste management costs in half. What’s more, thanks to ReFood’s innovative ‘bin swap’ service, full bins are collected and replaced with empty, sanitised replacements – allowing them to be used hygienically in kitchen areas.
Clare Nye, co-founder of Marmadukes, commented: “Food waste is an issue across the hospitality sector and our business is no exception. As part of our commitment to sustainable business practices, we partnered with ReFood and set ourselves strict reduction and recycling targets.
“Rather than simply adopting a new waste management solution, working with ReFood has allowed us to think differently about waste – and how to maximise the value of resource that was previously simply landfilled. Prior to working with ReFood, we didn’t appreciate the environmental damage of our food scraps. Now, we’re on a mission to eradicate general waste wherever possible.
“Being able to use bins in kitchen areas makes it easy for our team to separate and dispose of food waste. While many would consider the idea of food waste recycling costly, complicated and expensive, we’ve found the opposite to be true. ReFood empties our bins on a schedule – and frequency – to suit our needs and the whole process was adopted seamlessly. What’s more, with no landfill tax applicable to the food waste sent for recycling, we’re saving a huge amount on our waste management bills.
“With consumers putting an ever-greater value on the sustainable and ethical practices of hospitality venues and their suppliers, the implementation of our food waste recycling strategy helps us to demonstrate to our customers that we are taking the issue very seriously. Our partnership with ReFood is the icing on the cake to our existing initiatives focused on driving sustainability across the business. It helps to demonstrate our credentials as a responsible hotelier committed to reducing our environmental impact.”
Philip Simpson, commercial director at ReFood, added: “We know that food waste recycling can conjure up images of smelly bins and extra hassle for kitchens, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Our service is very popular with customers because we take away full bins and replace them with clean, sanitised ones. We also develop a collection schedule to suit each customer’s needs.
“Every year, the hospitality sector throws away millions of tonnes of food waste. Marmadukes is a great example of a business tackling the issue head-on and embracing innovative solutions to prevent valuable resources from ending up in landfill.”
