sustainability: more beauty less harm

Gastronomy is committed to and balances people, planet and profit.
Safe and ethical sourcing, recycling, and community engagement form part of who we are and how we think.
The waste Australia generates is staggering, so we see every sustainable action as positive. From the fish we buy to the bio-degradable disposables we use, our programs are designed to reduce harm and inspire ourselves to think about the actions we take every day.  The support we give and receive from OzHarvest means we enable the rescue of 2.4 million meals a year from 624,000 kg of otherwise wasted food, saving 3,960,000 of CO2 emissions annually. To put those statistics into perspective, that’s over 6,400 meals a day.

our commitment to the world

 In Australia, our annual food waste is more than 7.6 million tonnes each year, costing the economy more than $36.6 billion each year. The UNEP Food Waste Index ranks Australia as the tenth most wasteful country in the world. Yet with all that waste, people still go hungry or can’t afford a healthy diet for their family.

Food waste is generated at every stage of the supply chain with a third being lost in primary production/farms, a third from the manufacturing, retail and hospitality sectors and a third from our homes. All that water, fertiliser, power, fuel and human effort wasted. In addition greenhouse gasses are created by food waste breaking down in landfill.

Change is required at all levels of society.  That’s why all our profits go to OzHarvest. 

When we started donating regularly to OzHarvest in 2022, our aim was to donate all our profits to OzHarvest. We have been able to do that, enabling over 2.4 million meals in two years to people in need. The story of that partnership is told here: OzHarvest x Gastronomy Video. As the logical next step in our partnership, OzHarvest Ventures (the social enterprise arm of OzHarvest) became the owner of our company Gastronomy Group in July 2024.

We think about sustainability and how it applies to our creative business.  When we buy fresh food we think about how it is delivered. Will the fish supplier use cooler bags? Will the fruit supplier accept their boxes back? Will the tea supplier use compostable packaging? When we dispose of waste we are mindful of our local environment and the broader community. We follow and promote open and transparent practices that reduce the environmental impacts of all our activities and we help our clients, suppliers and neighbours do the same.

In practice this means writing menus with seasonal produce and incorporating local and organic sourcing, with a balance of imported fair trade products ensuring farmers and growers in other countries are properly compensated and supported for their labour.

We quietly write plant based food into all our menus – no need to make a fuss, we just do it.

We think about animal welfare in the production of our food. We use free range eggs from happy chickens and our grass fed beef comes from cattle running in paddocks rather than trapped in feedlots.

NET Zero

Gastronomy is close to being carbon neutral in Scope 1 and 2 emissions, (see below) our goal is net zero in these scopes by July 1 2025. Having completed and had measurement audited by Trace,  the next steps are to use their platform to set targets and implement actions around stage 3 emissions. We publicly commit to a net zero target by 2050.

suppliers

These are big cities we work in and yet, quietly and with artisan pride, local producers arise. Malfroys Gold honey in the Blue Mountians, Double Roasters Coffee in Marrickville, re-useable wine kegs from  Sparrow and Vine, free range eggs from Fyfe Family Eggs in Seymour. We love Alto Olives from Crookwell and the Australian native food revolution of Warndu. These are our Big City. Handmade kind of producers.

We and our suppliers support the four International Labour Organisation (ILO) core labour standards. We want a world with no child labour; no discrimination; no forced nor compulsory labour; and the freedom of association and right to collective bargaining as expressed in the Fundamental ILO Conventions.

Which leads us to our people…

A declaration to our people

We are a female and male run business and come from a wide range of cultural, religious, geographic and ethnic heritages, each with their own histories and traditions. As an equal opportunity employer Gastronomy does not discriminate on the grounds of gender, race, age, marital status, religion, culture or physical difference. We celebrate our diversity, especially our culinary diversity and treat each other with respect. Religious, political and philosophical discussion flows when we gather for our daily meal which is a bridge to our common humanity.

We do not hire to, nor presume to categorise, individual employees into race, culture or gender. What we can publically declare is that our workforce, when asked to self identify for the purpose of measuring gender equality, show that we are well ahead of Australian averages. We are around 50/50 male to female (which is exactly where we want to be) and Gastronomy’s median total salary difference between men and women is 5.9% for 2023. (which is close to our goal of 0% difference). FYI the national average is 19%!

We train for excellence. We foster individual and team talents. We promote within our ranks and cultivate loyalty. We understand flexibility works both ways. Gastronomy is inspired by all of us – our cultures, our passions and our beliefs.

recycling

We work in an industry where a large amount of refuse is produced. This generally falls into 5 different categories: compostable organic waste; lipids; glass, aluminium and paper; plastics and electronic and mixed waste.

Compostable organic waste: Where we can, we compost organic waste: vegetable and fruit peelings, meat and fish scraps, disposable plates, shredded paper, egg cartons, paper towels, egg shells and coffee grounds. We don’t compost as much as we would like to – some of the corporate environments we work in don’t have the facilites – but we are working on it.  We have already successfully created hundreds of  kilos of rich, life giving compost which created our herb beds and the gardens of our complex in Alexandria. The once barren industrial estate is slowly becoming a mini green haven for bees, birds and most importantly, fresh herbs!.

Disposables: The disposables we use biodegradable. Rather than plastic cutlery we use wooden cutlery and plates are unbleached paper or bamboo or sugar cane fibre (such as the BioPak range). We prefer the elimination of all single use coffee cups and save clients money and the environment by using reusables such as Huskee for cafe coffee, and cafe food served in china, glass, metal and legacy melamine already on site 

Lipids: Waste oils and fats are picked up from our premises and recycled as biofuel, animal feed products, detergents and soap, paints and industrial lubricants .

Glass, paper, aluminium cans and electronic waste: these are collected, categorised and recycled. Old computers, appliances and printers, we take to City of Sydney e-waste,  Brisbane City council, and other council facilities across Australia.

Plastics: PET plastics are recycled but to be honest, we prefer reusable containers wherever possible. We actively recommend water dispensers and glasses rather than individual water bottles and soft drinks come in cans or glass bottles (they taste better that way too!) To be clear, we still use PET bottles, sometimes there’s no choice, but we’re pretty happy with the thousands of glasses of water served that used to be served in plastic.

Mixed waste: And then there’s everything that’s left. Dirty plastics, cling wrap (if only someone would invent a biodegradeable cling wrap that actually works!), used rubber gloves. That’s life in the city but we’re working on it!

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