Cape Town’s best address, The Table Bay hotel, is on a zero-to-waste kitchen drive championed by their new executive chef, Lindsay Venn, and general manager, Joanne Selby.

The five-star Sun International property has introduced a recycling-from-the-source project in its kitchens, with the help of the Waste Plan team at the V&A Waterfront.

Food waste, boxes, glass bottles, tins, paper towel and plastic gets separated into bins before the waste is transferred to the Waterfront’s Waste Plan plant. “This reduces our carbon footprint 10-fold,” Venn said. “The changes are a mindset, and you must be patient and work hard to get others on board. Zero waste doesn’t mean you have to use everything immediately – you can freeze items or refrigerate for the following days’ meals.”

Kitchen sections each have buckets where chefs dispose of vegetable offcuts which are then turned into compost and used by fruit and vegetable farmers. “This means we complete a 360-cycle of zero waste.”

Ideas for waste control include offcuts of vegetables being used to make vegetable stock for soup. “This adds more natural flavour instead of stock powders that increase prices of items,” said Venn. Offcuts of vegetables are used to make pickles, with Venn citing the health trend for kimchi; watermelon skins used for confit; orange peels to make marmalade; beetroot to make oil, beetroot salmon gravadlax or beetroot caviar; and onion offcuts for onion soubise sauce. The hotel uses sparkling water bottled on its premises in reusable glass bottles, and gets its herbs from an on-site garden with rosemary, thyme, basil and mint.

Venn hopes that the hotel’s plastic waste can be made into re-usable crates for suppliers to deliver fruit and vegetables. “The idea would be to have them branded and the suppliers deliver our produce and collect empty crates. If all restaurants could do this, we would be doing our part to heal the planet.”

Selby said the hotel was aiming for a carboard- and plastic-free environment. “It will take a while but we work on it every day and every little bit makes a difference. It would be great if Cape Town could be up there with other nations on healing our planet. We all need to join forces and do our part.”

The hotel is also joining forces with the Waterfront management team and the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation to start a chef’s working group to share ideas on minimising waste in food and beverage outlets. “Chef Lindsay Venn is an inspiration,” said Dr Mann, executive of strategic projects at the foundation.

“He has supported our Zero Waste research at the Waterfront and is helping us to explore innovative solutions to waste challenges. We look forward to continuing this Zero Waste Journey with the Table Bay Hotel. The aim is to grow this into the mall and other establishments across the city to increase the green footprint and build a greener future for all.”