Case Study - Bridestowe Lavender Estate

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The project

• Evaluate the effectiveness of composting methods trialled to inform the adoption of larger-scale resource efficiency strategies across the site.
• Optimise supporting activities, for example: separation and collection of waste and methods of disposal, etc, to enhance manufacturing processes, food service and the customer experience.

Background

• The company was focusing on reducing food waste but soon discovered that primary packaging was actually a bigger problem.

Objectives

• Implement large-scale composting of food waste from the cafe.
• Increase efficiency in food service and manufacturing.

Targets

• Reduce waste to landfill by 50%.
• Reduce or maintain service cycle times.
• Reduce or maintain product cycle times.

Outcomes

What was implemented?

• Processes for sorting and monitoring of waste streams are now implemented for all operations.
• Oven replaced in kitchen eliminated the bulk of food waste from cafe.
• Cardboard perforator installed and almost all cardboard re-used on site as a substitute for plastic bubble-wrap.

Key issues

• Changing the culture of the business, everyone needs to play their part.
• It’s expensive to do the right thing and there are hidden costs, for example: time taken to sort and separate.
• Finding simplified information is really hard.

Performance against targets

• Our total waste volumes have increased significantly due to higher visitor numbers, however we have limited waste to landfill by extracting as much recyclable material as possible.
• We have integrated sorting so our service times in the cafe and cycle times in manufacturing are not affected.

Lessons learnt

• Staff wanted to be involved and help to be a part of the solution.
• Ask for help outside of the organisation – we want to do the right thing but it is really confusing.
• Look at your waste streams and work backwards up the supply chain.​