Framework
The Food Made Good Standard is the only global sustainability certification designed especially for the foodservice industry. This evaluation of operations defines what ‘good’ looks like for restaurants in today’s world, rewards action over intention and provides businesses with a thorough and tailored action plan for improvement. It also gives you a reputable third-party certification that helps to communicate your sustainability work with customers, staff and other stakeholders.
By completing the Food Made Good Standard, you join a movement of like-minded organisations that are working to create a socially progressive and environmentally restorative hospitality sector.
Key impact areas of the Food Made Good Standard
When we say the Standard is “holistic” or “360-degree”, these aren’t just empty buzzwords. We are passionate about the idea that sustainability should be prioritised across every element of how a foodservice business operates – this is an approach to corporate responsibility that goes above and beyond carbon tracking or water use. That’s what makes Food Made Good the global gold standard for the hospitality industry.
The Food Made Good Standard evaluates action across the three pillars of our framework: Sourcing, Society and Environment. Within each pillar, we focus on a number of key impact areas to incorporate sustainability at every level of operations. These are explained below in more detail.
Sourcing
Celebrate Provenance
Celebrate Provenance’s focus is on where your ingredients come from and how you work with your suppliers and your supply chain. We aim to encourage businesses to choose suppliers and products that are fully traceable, and that actively work to protect the environment and uphold human rights all along the supply chain.
Support Farmers and Fishers
The focus of Support Farmers and Fishers is to ensure that the hospitality sector values farmers and fishers and their communities. We look at your direct and indirect trade relationships, putting a particular spotlight on the purchase of certain products where risks of social and environmental abuses are higher. We aim to ensure that across your sourcing, your terms of trade are fair, encouraging long term, mutually beneficial relationships in which farmers and fishers earn a decent living from their work and their human rights are respected.
More Plants, Better Meat
The aim of More Plants, Better Meat is to increase the consumption of plant-based foods and reduce meat consumption. While the goal is to promote plant-based diets, we do not expect that restaurants will completely stop serving meat. Instead, we try to support a transition towards a plant-rich diet that contains limited amounts of animal products. We align with the idea that, if we are to eat meat, it should be of the best quality and raised in the best conditions possible.
Source Seafood Sustainably
Through Source Seafood Sustainably, we aim to ensure that the seafood you source is caught or farmed in a manner that protects marine and freshwater ecosystems and does not come from biologically unsustainable stocks, such as overfished or endangered species.
Society
Treat Staff Fairly
The focus of Treat Staff Fairly is to ensure your employees are treated well and that their working conditions are better than statutory minimums. In doing so, we aim to encourage you to create working environments where your staff feel safe, valued and supported, helping to forge a new image of hospitality – one in which people can see themselves building long-term careers. These actions should help to reduce turnover, improve wellbeing and reduce health problems, which should in turn have a positive knock-on effect on your bottom line.
Feed People Well
The goal of Feed People Well is to promote healthy eating and drinking, in line with EAT Lancet Commission and WHO guidelines. Obesity and malnutrition are major drivers of negative health outcomes, while alcohol abuse can not only impact health, but can also contribute to antisocial or dangerous behaviour. Foodservice has an important role to play in promoting healthier (while still delicious) food and drink choices and educating diners so that they are empowered to make better, more informed decisions.
Support the Community
Restaurants form an integral part of the social and economic fabric of a community. This provides you with an opportunity and responsibility to have a positive impact, from charitable giving to using your procurement to support different types of supplies or to providing time, skills and resources to members of the community. Ensuring your business is accessible to all customers is another essential element of this impact area.
Environment
Reduce Your Footprint
Through Reduce Your Footprint, we encourage you to reduce your environmental footprint – from greenhouse gas emissions to energy use, water use and air, water and chemical pollution – and so minimise damage to the environment and to human health. We prioritise reducing greenhouse gas emissions over carbon capture since, while carbon sequestration and protecting carbon sinks are vitally important, it is only through a significant reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions that we will attain net zero by 2050. When it comes to energy and water, we encourage businesses to reduce their consumption and increase the use of renewable energy, thus reducing water stress and moving away from fossil fuels.
Waste No Food
Waste No Food looks at what you’re doing to fight food waste. The number of people suffering from hunger across the world has been rising since 2014, and yet huge quantities of edible food is lost or wasted each day. It’s estimated that around 40% of all food produced is lost or wasted, 5% of which is in the hospitality industry – and this wasted food accounts for around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, food waste is such an important issue that the UN has devoted a whole Sustainable Development Goal to it (Goal 12.3). Beyond the social and environmental implications of wasting food, food waste also represents a financial cost to your business. We encourage you to reduce food waste as much as possible, and to then take steps to reuse, redistribute and recycle the food waste you can’t avoid.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Finally, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle looks at what you’re doing to fight non-organic waste: that is, all waste excluding food. We focus first on the actions you’re taking to reduce how much non-organic waste you produce, working on the principal that the best type of waste is the one you don’t create in the first place. We then turn our attention to your work to reuse and recycle the waste you can’t avoid. We encourage you to promote reuse, eliminate single use items and adopt a circular approach to everything you do, from menu creation to the design of the buildings in which you operate. Doing so helps preserve finite resources and reduces environmental damage (e.g., from plastic pollution). For all waste that cannot be reduced, reused or recycled, we encourage you to divert as much as possible from landfill.
Ready to see how the Food Made Good Standard can benefit your business? Sign up to get started on your sustainability journey!
