Real Talk: How Bar and Kitchen Teams Can Collaborate on Sustainability

Karen Finnerty, The Sustainable Restaurant Association: Hi guys, thank you so much for joining me today for our Real Talk interviews for The Sustainable Restaurant Association’s YouTube channel. Thank you so much and it's been lovely spending a few days with you here at Rosewood Phnom Penh.

First of all, could you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about your role at Rosewood Phnom Penh? 

Jonas Vittur, Rosewood Phnom Penh: So, my name is Jonas. I recently joined six months ago. I'm the Director of Bars here, which means I'm taking care of all the bars in the hotel, all beverage-related things apart from wine. 

Jan van Dyke, Rosewood Phnom Penh: I'm Jan, Culinary Director and Operations. So, we've been looking after both sections for almost a year and a half now. It's good to be able to talk about what we're passionate about. We're looking forward to it.  

Karen: Thank you so much. It's been great experiencing the restaurants and the hotel in real life. We've been working together for a couple of years now, and you guys are Food Made Good certified with three stars, and to be able to experience the restaurants in real life has been really wonderful.

Can you tell us a little bit about Rosewood's global approach to sustainability? We're aware that there are a lot of global strategic ideas and kind of global impact goals. So, tell us a little bit about the approach and about why it matters to the brand.  

Jan: Okay. Rosewood is deeply committed to sustainability and impact. Sonia is very, very focused on this mission. It's one of our brand pillars and it's the way of moving forward. It's not just, as Jonas said yesterday, a fad or something. It is something that is deep in our veins. Committed to providing a better world, providing luxury travellers the experience of sustainability, but without showing it. 

So, we're doing it behind scenes, as Jonas mentioned yesterday in his talk. It's all about being natural. So, for Rosewood, it is very, very important as a sustainable impact that we enrich the lives of others and do it in a very sustainable way. It's important to us as well as the company. 

Karen: And how does that approach then come through in bars from your perspective, that overall global strategic approach of Rosewood? 

Jonas: I think there's a few sides to that. We mostly focus, of course, on the natural resources to source as much as possible. Not just reducing our carbon footprint but also giving a much more local experience. So, Rosewood is all about not having this copy-paste experience. When you go to different properties, you're going to get a different experience and therefore it’s also about being very original.  

For the bars, we're trying to obviously adapt to that approach but also kind of like go a little bit deeper into that. So, we focus a lot on working with our local communities, with our NGOs, with our suppliers. The good thing about Cambodia is that it's a pretty small market, so it's very tight. We know pretty much everybody in the country, it's very easy to work with. Also, we are the first ones here to start, so it's all about trial and error. We're still living and learning. But so far, it's been a great journey and I'm looking forward to seeing what's coming next.

Karen: How much of what you do is guided by that global strategy versus local decisions? So, you mentioned a lot about the local connections and local suppliers. Are you guys able to decide for yourself, from a local perspective, how that pans out across the year? 

Jan: There are hotel brands in the market where, from head office, it comes down and says this is what you have to do. We want you to do that, this is the guideline, and this is the supplier you’re going to buy from, and so on and so on. As directors or current leaders or managers, we get incentives and are told these are the four things we want you to worry about. Let’s focus on this here. If it’s buying sustainably sourced fish, if it’s no palm oil, no whatever, etc. We get our guides and that’s it. It’s up to you then to figure it out, because each country is different. You cannot tell us that’s exactly what you have to do everywhere. 

So yes, here in Cambodia, we are lucky. We are very lucky, in the sense that it is an undeveloped market and better practice is new to everybody. We learn a lot as we go along. And we can work with our partners as well, because we can guide them on what we want from them. 

Karen: Thank you. We chatted earlier, and you’ve both mentioned a lot about being the first in Cambodia to think so broadly about how this applies across the entire property. So, you really are leading the way in this country. And with that, as you say, comes both positives and challenges. 

When you’re thinking about all of this, about the practices and the strategies, what does it actually look like in day-to-day activity? You mentioned the vermouth earlier, which is such an exciting concept to come from waste within the property. Could you tell us a bit more about that? And then maybe we can talk about what day-to-day action looks like in practice, starting with the bars, and then how that translates into the kitchen? 

Jonas: So, to answer your first question, with the vermouth, Seyha came along to get more of our branding out there and create our own products in collaboration with local partners. The vermouth is one of them, but we also have collaborations with Mawsim, for instance, for gin. We do our own sake, still sake, and sparkling sake with a brewery here, and there are many more projects as well. 

The vermouth is particularly interesting because we take a different approach. What we do is use garnishes from service that are left over, keep them to dehydrate, and then eventually use them as botanicals. In addition, with a few spices, we collect everything in-house and bring it to our partner, in this case Seekers. They add the rest of the botanicals that they already have in-house, make the wine for us, bottle it, and we send them our bottles as well. They re-cork it, we put the label on, send it back, and then use it. 

Like I said before, and also yesterday, it’s not about having the perfect process from day one, right? It’s more about starting something, seeing how it goes, taking the learnings, and then applying them everywhere else you can. Then you might apply it in the kitchen, right? It might not work the same way, but you take a new learning from there and then we go back and forth. We collaborate very closely with all departments in the hotel, take all the learnings, and try to push each other further and further. 

Karen: How about in the kitchens then, in day-to-day activity, what would you say are some of the biggest changes maybe that you guys have implemented over the last two years to try and be more mindful and sustainable?  

Jan: When we started with this sustainability concept, it wasn't that we said, "we’re going to be sustainable and that’s our focus". I was sitting with our Impact Manager at the time and said, I’ve got an idea. I want to build a small hydroponic garden, just to grow enough lettuce from seeds that I bring back, because I was looking for butter lettuce, which we can’t find here. I said, I’ve got seeds, I want to grow butter lettuce. We built a small hydroponic setup. I drew it on a piece of paper, gave it to her, and she went off to the canteen. 

The person sitting next to her looked over and said, but I’ve done this before. It turned out that before COVID, he had a small company building hydroponic gardens, and he came in and built a small system for us. For $300, we started with something small, and it got a lot of attention. Then we said, okay, how can we educate our staff to do this at home? So we started growing in Styrofoam boxes. That caught on, and they’re doing it at home now. 

It was a bit too hot where we started, so we had to look for another venue. We walked around the hotel and found a big area on the 11th floor. We started growing all the leafy greens for the hotel there. Then the press took notice, and the owner became very proud, saying we were the first hotel, the first building in Cambodia, to grow its own vegetables.

Karen: It’s so impressive when you walk into that space, and you kind of come through what feels like the bowels of the building, and then it’s this brightly lit space. Is it like 12 or 14 floors of green? It’s amazing. It’s impressive. 

Jan: In the kitchens, we don’t force the staff to be sustainable. We allow their minds to explore. They saw Jonas drying citrus for the vermouth and said, what if we dry an orange? So, they dry the whole orange, make the juice, hollow it out, and now we use it for bath salts in the hotel. Because the bath salts normally come in plastic, and we said no plastic for guest-facing areas, they came up with this themselves. It’s something small. 

People think sustainability costs a lot of money, that you have to invest a lot into it. I say start small. Small changes. Look at what’s in your bin. What do you throw away? We save on food cost and put that saving back into better products — so the customer gets better, higher-end products without increasing the price. What I save on food cost, I put it back into the restaurants. Sustainability doesn’t cost a lot; it’s about changing your mindset and starting small. 

Because salaries are low in Cambodia, we also let staff sell things like cardboard, soap bars or fish heads. The money goes into their department and they share it. It’s not hotel revenue. It’s giving back to them and making them take ownership and responsibility for what they’re doing. 

For example, we found local lemons. I found a guy who’s growing them on a small farm, and I said, we’ll take all your lemons — whatever you produce, give it to us. That encourages him. We pay market price, so it encourages him to plant more trees and grow his business. And we’re supporting local producers because we’re not paying what a middleman would — we pay the end price directly to him. 

We also work with a rice community — eight farmers — where we buy around four tonnes of rice a month and pay the end price. We don’t pay 60 cents; we pay $2.20. That helps farmers stop relying on their kids to work the land and instead send them to school, because they’re actually making enough money to sustain themselves and grow their operation. 

Karen: It's those direct relationships, being able to provide the maximum in terms of what they need to be able to grow their production — having those really close local relationships is so important.  

Jan: It’s very important. Our biggest partner is probably Smiling Gecko, an NGO set up by Hannes Schmid. It’s really worth visiting if you’re in Cambodia. The first time I went, I was very impressed by the school they run. 

The children arrive in their own clothes, then change into a school uniform and receive a small bag. They brush their teeth, comb their hair, and then go to class. The first two years are taught entirely in English, then in both Khmer and English, and they're now up to year 11. It’s a fully established school. What's interesting is the discipline around learning. Every child must read a book and play a musical instrument. Only one child per family within a 50-kilometre radius is allowed to attend. Between classes, they’re expected to either read or write, so there’s always a focus on learning. The children are fed at school and are allowed to take food home. That child then brings a book home and reads to their siblings, and sometimes even educates their parents. That really stood out to me.  

From there, we started working more closely together. They have a fish farm, so we looked at buying tilapia, which has a bad reputation in the market, but we wanted to see how we could work with it. We also asked them to start growing vegetables, and now they have six or seven large greenhouses producing for us — mulberries, greens, and whatever we need. It's not for profit; it's good that the circle keeps going. So, we like working with people, very closely with people. And we take our staff there and educate them so they can see what we're doing, and then they get the buy-in more.  

Karen: We’ve talked a bit about you being the first hotel in Cambodia to take this kind of approach, and also the first business here to achieve three Food Made Good stars, which is a big achievement. How does that compare to what other hotels are doing? Across the wider hotel landscape, are you seeing others start to think this way and work with local suppliers, or does it still feel like you’re leading the way? 

Jonas: I think there are a few sides to it. We’re in a very new market, so people see success and want to be part of it. What they don’t always see is the process behind that success. We go through a lot of trial and error, and once something works, others try to copy it one-to-one without understanding how it got there. That often doesn’t work. It really comes down to finding your own way of doing things. That said, it’s positive to see others getting inspired and raising their standards. And if they want to compete, they’ll need to step up. 

Jan: I think working with Food Made Good and The SRA was the right choice. At first, I thought, who are they? But once we started the process, it really made us look at ourselves and understand what we were doing and where we could improve. We realised that yes, we’re doing a lot already, but we still needed to fine-tune things. And it never felt pushed onto us. The question was simple: what do you do? Tell us how you do it. That made us think, actually, we can do more. We can tweak things further. 

It was a real surprise to receive three stars straight away. We were very happy and proud, but more importantly it pushed us to keep thinking and improving. As Jonas said, we’re the ones people are looking at, but it’s not easy for many properties, because they see sustainability as an expense and ask what this star really brings. 

We’re also very subtle about it. There’s no big display when you walk in. It’s more for us, to know that we’re following good standards. What we’ve noticed is that many luxury travellers now ask, are you sustainable, and do you have a story to tell? They’re not looking for a “green hotel”, just places that genuinely follow good practices. And that’s a big focus for us. 

Karen: We were here yesterday to celebrate Rosewood Phnom Penh’s eighth anniversary at your sustainable bar and restaurant summit, and it was a great first day. With the cocktail festival continuing today, it’s clear this is something you’re passionate about and keen to grow, especially in bringing together the wider Asia-Pacific network. 

With that in mind, I’d love to talk about how connecting teams around sustainability can create real impact in a hotel setting. Can you tell us how your bar and kitchen teams work together? We've touched on a few examples already, but is there a more cohesive way you plan menus or seasons and collaborate across teams? 

Jan: What we’ve found is that collaboration across bars, kitchens, front office — everyone — happens very naturally. It’s not that we sit down to formally brainstorm. By the time we talk about an idea, the staff already have multiple solutions. They talk to each other and say, I’ve got an idea, I want to try this, I want to try that. Of course, we do sit down at times. I might say, I’m working on a new menu and looking for something specific, or Jonas might say, I want to buy this. And I’ll ask, can we source it locally? Then we dig into it. We speak to the teams, and they go out, look around, and come back saying, we’ve found it. 

Karen: Have there been any real challenges, or examples of things you tried that didn’t work and that you learned from? 

Jan: Yeah, we’ve got a couple of things that don’t work well. It's always trial and error. You burn your fingers, you try again, and you learn from it, right? We work very closely with each other, and that’s important. The biggest key to success is communication — letting each other know what works, what doesn’t, and not saying no, but saying let’s try. Like I say, if you don't try, you'll never know.

Karen: And then I suppose our last question, just to round up everything today. Looking globally, do you have any advice for any other hotels or large operations on how their teams can work cohesively together to be able to create good processes, good ideas? Not even on a global perspective, but from a Cambodian perspective, if you guys were speaking to other hotels about teamwork to try and make sustainability practices work, would you have any advice? 

Jonas: I would say the best way to start is just to start. Raise awareness, make sure everybody walks around with open eyes and open ears, asks questions, and most importantly questions everything, including themselves. Even if you’ve been doing something for a long time, maybe five or 10 years ago it made sense. The question is, is it still the right way to do it? 

There’s also a very interesting practice I learned a few years ago called kill your darlings. If something is working really, really well, don’t rely on it alone. Try something else. Don’t depend on one thing that’s running everything. Diversify, not just in practices — the same goes for suppliers. Even if you have one supplier who’s very good, don’t rely only on them. You need a backup plan. What happens if they can’t supply? You need to be flexible and able to adapt. 

But to come back to your question, the best way is to start small, like we talked about yesterday, and see where it goes. Very often you start something with one intention, and then others add to it along the way. And everything has to come naturally. If you force it, it won’t work. People need to follow it because they want to. 

Jan: Let them take ownership, make them part of the process. Because if they're part of the process then it becomes natural.  

Karen: And I think what we saw yesterday at the summit, from Daniel’s introduction, is that this belief really comes from the top down. It’s ingrained in the overall ethos of the hotel, and people genuinely believe in these strategies. To see that kind of team message coming from the managing director, and hearing about the desire to build something you can be proud of long after you're no longer at this hotel, was really powerful. 

Jan: I think for other properties, other hotels worldwide, locally, anyone who wants to make a change should work with somebody like The SRA and Food Made Good. They give you the support of knowing that what you’re doing is right. They’re not there to teach you, but to give you that backup and confidence that you’re on the right path. 

It’s a guide, and it gives you the confidence to keep going, knowing you’re not doing anything wrong. What you’re doing is good. Work closely with people like that, ask questions, reach out, and don’t be afraid to do so. Whatever you do isn’t going to be wrong. We all make change slowly, and we’ve still got a long way to go. We don’t walk around patting ourselves on the back saying, this is what we’re doing. 

We do a lot of show-arounds for kids, schools and universities, where they come to see and hear about what we’re doing. But we don’t hang a banner outside the hotel saying, we're sustainable, come and see us. 

Karen: Thanks so much for speaking to me today. I really appreciate it. I've really enjoyed our chat and our time together here over the last couple of days. Thank you so much and congratulations on all of the work you are already doing. We're so proud to partner with you guys and to really be able to shout about the work you're doing. It is spectacular and it is really leading in the region and in Cambodia. So really look forward to seeing what else happens. Thank you so much.