Food Made Good Awards 2019 winners revealed

The Wheatsheaf in Chilton Foliat was crowned Business of the Year, and also picked up the Serve More Veg and Better Meat award.

The Wiltshire pub, which stopped serving traditional Sunday roasts and replaced bagged crisps with homemade as part of its efforts cut down on waste, achieved the highest score in the Food Made Good Sustainability Rating.

The Food Made Good Awards recognise restaurants and foodservice businesses whose accomplishments in the last year have driven progress in the industry and demonstrated that ‘food can be made delicious, ethical and sustainable’.

“This is everything we strive for here at The Wheatsheaf,” said the pub’s chef owner Ollie Hunter on winning the award.

“Every decision and action we take is for sustainability, and this award is reward for all those decisions and actions.

“This is about the future of all food businesses; bring on the revolution.”

Another big winner was YO!, which took home the Source Fish Responsibly award for hitting its target to move from 60% to 100% sustainably sourced seafood 15 months ahead of schedule.

It also won the Treat Staff Fairly award in recognition of its business-wide initiative to manage employees’ mental health, which has helped the 70-site group reduce staff absences by 40% in six months and seen churn amongst salaried staff fall by 9%.

Nando’s triumphed in the Support Global Farmers category for using its influence as the world’s largest importer of African Bird’s Eye chillies to support 1500 farmers through above-market value pricing and training; while The Restaurant Group (TRG), whose range of energy saving measures saw it reduce electricity and gas by a combined 4,800,000 kWh in 2018, won the Value Natural Resources award.

A new category this year was the Food Made Good Chef of the Year, which was won by ‘Ethical Chef’ Deri Reed, who owns The Warren in Carmarthen, Wales.

Meanwhile, teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg was named this year’s Sustainable Food Hero by the SRA President Raymond Blanc, for “waking one generation, shaking at least one more and inspiring millions to engage and act on climate change”.

Speaking at the awards, Blanc said: “Tonight’s winners of the Food Made Good Awards demonstrate that we can take risks, influence our guests to make better choices and use creative skills to ensure that every meal we serve has a positive impact.”