At The Canteen we aim to be industry-leading with our sustainable and regenerative practices. This year we’re offering all our customers the chance to indulge in a Low-Carbon Christmas.

We know Christmas can be a wasteful time of year, with throw-away plastic gifts, people travelling to see relatives and food waste, don’t get us started on the food waste. Over Christmas in the UK, we throw away around 230,000 tonnes of food. If the average person eats 35 tonnes in a lifetime, that is over 6,500 thousand people’s entire food we’re throwing away in less than a month! 

All this waste contributes to our carbon emissions. And, at The Canteen, and our wider group The Assemblies, we have been tasked, via our partnership with Net Zero Now, tot reducing this over the last couple of years and into the future. 

Our mission was to devise a way to help our customers and team reduce their carbon emissions over Christmas. We wanted to bring you a Low-Carbon Christmas, an option to make a good choice for the planet (and doesn’t compromise your pocket either!)

Our menu is a chance to celebrate responsibly with your party and can show avowed carnivores that vegetarian food cooked creatively, is every bit as delicious and can help contribute to a much lower carbon-intensive lifestyle. Good for you, good for the planet, good for Christmas! Liam Stock Sustainability & General Manager, The Canteen

Working with Bristol company Future Leap we decided to carbon rate our Christmas menu, and a traditional 3-course Christmas menu including roast turkey and all the trimmings. Their team took all our data, which consisted of recipes for each dish on our menu, and then they chose a comparative traditional Christmas menu, from the good ol’ BBC Good Food page. After crunching the numbers with data from Big Climate Database… the results came in loud and clear.  The Canteen Christmas menu rocks in at a whopping 53% less carbon-intensive than your traditional turkey, which is something to really shout about! 

“We are proud to announce that Future Leap consultancy has been working with The Canteen to calculate the carbon impact of their vegetarian Christmas sharing menu. This work has proven that it’s possible to have a delicious festive experience whilst minimising your climate impact, as their menu emits half the carbon of a traditional Christmas dinner. Hospitality is a key sector to get everyone on board for the journey to net zero, so this has been a fantastic collaboration for us.” Tom Batten, Head of Consultancy

By choosing The Canteen for your Christmas meal, you are making a Low-Carbon choice this Christmas and helping to contribute to lower carbon emissions.