Did you know that one-third of all food produced to feed people goes to waste? That equates to a horrifying 1.3 billion tonnes annually.
Traditionally, restaurants are big contributors, with up to 45 per cent of food wastage happening at the food preparation stage and about 20 per cent lost through spoilage. And then of course, there’s what diners leave on their plates.
In this episode of ExtraVirgin, Natascha and Sam head to the beautiful Spicers Hidden Vale in the lush countryside about an hour from Brisbane in Australia, to talk to executive chef Ash Martin about how a fire that left the restaurant a smoking pile of rubble, has powered him further along on his journey to running a zero waste kitchen.
The fire, which started from an electrical fault in the ceiling, not only forced him to change the way he cooked, but gave him the opportunity to ensure his built-from-scratch, state-of-the-art kitchen, which recently re-opened after two years, is waste-free.
Ash shares some of the often off-beat ways that he and his staff make sure everything is used and how we can adopt some of these principles in our own home kitchens. Fermented potato-skin salt anyone?