Source Seafood Sustainably: CH&CO
29 October 2024
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Photo Credit: The Sustainable Restaurant Association (TSRA)
CH&CO IS A COLLECTION OF BRANDS THAT SPECIALISE IN CATERING AT EVENTS AND IN WORKPLACES, VISITOR ATTRACTIONS, UNIVERSITIES, CAFÉS, RESTAURANTS AND CORPORATE FINE DINING AND HOSPITALITY. THE TEAM HAS BEEN WORKING WITH THE SRA SINCE 2018 AND IMPRESSED OUR TEAM FROM THE GET-GO, EARNING THREE STARS IN THEIR FIRST FOOD MADE GOOD EVALUATION AND IMPROVING EVEN FURTHER IN THEIR SUBMISSIONS SINCE.
We sat down with Rosie Rayner-Law, Sustainability Business Partner at CH&CO, to chat about why they feel so passionately about sustainability and how they ensure their seafood sourcing is impeccable.
“Our north star goal is to halt climate change, restore nature and deliver high social value” says Rosie Rayner-Law, Sustainability Business Partner at CH&CO. “We feed thousands of people each day across our business, from workplace dining to cultural destinations, weddings, special events and more. We have a responsibility to help shift food culture by serving delicious food that people want to eat, that is also sustainable and good for them.”
“Fish and seafood form a significant part of their offering; Rosie shares that they bought almost 500,000kg of seafood in 2023 alone! Demand for the Big 5 fish is still high among customers: “Although it’s hard to quantify, we believe fish and chips on Fridays are our best-selling main meal, and tuna baked potatoes and sandwiches are always popular,” she says. Aware that the stocks of the Big 5 fish – cod, haddock, tuna, salmon and prawns – are running low, they’re keen to keep exploring and serving more alternatives to these fish. “We want to help shift the dial on what the public considers to be good fish to eat.'”
How does CH&CO source seafood sustainably?
Contract catering is complex, especially for such a big organisation, and requires a smart and considered approach to implementing sustainability measures. “We have hundreds of different sites, with most changing their menus every day,” says Rosie. “We have almost 10,000 employees and vast numbers of suppliers and product lines. When it comes to an issue like the sustainability of seafood, we work equally with our procurement teams and our chefs. First, we need to make sure the right items are available for our chefs, but we also need to help our chefs to understand the issues and what the alternatives are.”
Where procurement is concerned, their focus is on collecting the right data and on working closely with suppliers. “We spend a lot of time making sure our data is correct and visible,” says Rosie. “We’ve been engaging with all our suppliers for the past few years, clearly communicating that we only want to purchase fish rated 1-3 [‘okay’ or ‘good to eat’] by the Marine Conservation Society.” When any fish moves into a 4 or 5 rating, the team works with suppliers to source alternative lines, removing the non-compliant fish from their buying lists.
Crucially, they’ve translated this data into visible dashboards and graphs for their operators. “This means they can see what fish they’re buying, what MCS rating it holds, and what percentage of their fish purchasing comes from the ‘Big 5’,” Rosie explains. “They can use this information to change their purchasing habits, or share good news stories with their clients and customers.” It also allows the team to monitor whether any fish are unrated or yet to be rated, or have been listed without a rating.
On the operational side, diversifying away from the ‘Big 5’ is key. Cod, haddock, prawns, tuna and salmon account for around 80% of all fish eaten in the UK, which puts enormous pressure on stocks. Furthermore, increasingly damaging fishing methods are often used to catch or farm these fish. “This has been our biggest focus when communicating with our operational teams on fish. For our chefs, this is an easy sustainability concept to grasp – we’re eating too much of these fish, there aren’t enough of them left and, if we continue to eat them, there may be a day when they’re no longer available,” says Rosie.
“Across the business, we’ve seen chefs swapping from cod and haddock on Fridays to other white fish, using mackerel instead of tuna as a jacket potato filling or simply removing tuna as an option.” On the events-focused side of the business, trout often appears as a salmon alternative. “Our sites don’t have mandated menus, but our different brands do provide central recipes for sites to use or to use as inspiration.” Their central chef teams now make use of a diverse range of fish, with hake, pollock, seabass and megrim all featured. This has made a big difference; over the last 12 months, almost 40% of their fish purchasing by weight has been from non-Big-5 fish.
Calling in the experts
“We recognise that fish supply chains are incredibly complex, and often we are asking our suppliers to go beyond their day-to-day to share information with us, which their systems may not be set up to do,” Rosie shares. This is one reason why CH&CO decided to become Marine Conservation Society company members. “This gives us direct contact with the experts at MCS to help us work with our suppliers to ensure that they’re sharing the best information possible with us, including catchment area and capture method.”
Rosie is most proud of how CH&CO chefs have risen to the challenge of diversifying their fish offering, and the creativity they’ve shown in doing so. “We recently hosted Vacherin’s annual One Planet Plate competition where chefs across the business were tasked with creating a main course out of coley, Chalk Stream trout or bass,” she says. “These chef competitions showcase to chefs what we want our food culture to be and give them space to flex their creativity – plus, crucially, they’re lots of fun!” Focusing on specific fish which are less commonly used but readily available within the supply chain – and affordable – plays a key role in getting chef buy-in, says Rosie.
Rosie is keen to share the benefits she sees from prioritising sustainable seafood options. “I think it keeps our customers interested! Variety is the spice of life, and we have feedback that customers have tried a new fish with us and gone on to cook it at home. It also helps us to provide a protein option for those looking to reduce their red meat, pork and/or poultry consumption, especially in salads.” She notes, too, that customers are increasingly aware of these issues. “This is a useful educational stepping stone towards bringing up bigger concepts, like biodiversity, nature depletion and our responsibility to create a sustainable food environment, where we make the right choices on behalf of our customers and clients.”
Food Made Good at CH&CO
CH&CO first signed up for the Food Made Good Standard in 2018 and have been working closely with us in the years since, also making use of our project and consultancy team to further support their ongoing sustainability work.
“CH&CO has been completing the Food Made Good Standard for years,” says Rosie. “It’s an invaluable exercise for us to take stock of where we are and what progress we’ve made, and it functions as a tool to work with our teams to raise any areas of concern and identify areas of best practice. It ensures we maintain good governance and, in meeting the evidence requirements, it helps us build our data infrastructure.”
What’s next for these leaders in sustainable catering? “We’re continuing to harness our data to help our operators make decisions, creating dynamic reports for them to see their sustainability progress,” says Rosie. “These reports compile lots of the data we hold in easy-to-read graphs, all in one place.”
Source: The Sustainable Restaurant Association
