In this episode, I talk to Juliane from The Sustainable Restaurant Association. A non profit organisation committed to change.
About Juliane
“Juliane Caillouette Noble is the acting Managing Director of the the Sustainable Restaurant Association, a not for profit membership organisation committed to accelerating change toward an environmentally restorative and socially progressive hospitality sector. She came to the SRA in 2016 after five years running Jamie Oliver’s programmes for improving school food and food education across the UK, and in her time at the SRA she has designed and developed strategic partnerships and campaigns to insure that the impact and influence of the SRA grow along side the size of the membership body..”
School dinners
Juliane worked with Jamie and has seen a vast improvement since the school dinners programme. When she started many children would bring a packed lunch to school, meaning that the school dinners programme was not getting the resources that it badly needed. However, luckily through their hard work they saw a turnaround and more school dinners were cooked fresh on site.
Linking this with food education, lead to an improvement of engagement within schools and the children making better choices for their meals. And having a real plan to ensure better quality meals were available has meant there have been a lot of positive changes.
Click HERE for my interview with Emmy, a year 9 food technology student. It really gave me an insight into the children of today are educated.
The results of Covid
Juliane is hopeful that the school dinners program will continue once children are back in school. When we spoke the headlines had just hit with the very poor quality free meal provision, however this was not the case everywhere and there was much better news. There is a group that she was very involved with called Chefs in Schools and they are really committed to improving the quality of food provided for children.
About the Sustainable Restaurant Association
Founded by Giles Gibbons, Simon Heppner, and two restaurant owners, Henry Dimbleby MBE (Co-Founder of Leon, Co-Author of the School Food Plan and Founder of StreetFeast) and Mark Sainsbury (Founder of Moro), the SRA promotes eating for people and the planet. Eating seasonally and locally, which I am a big fan of, is a big part of this, and it helps the local community too. The SRA encourages diners to make good choices and look at what they are eating overall, and the environmental policies of the restaurants.
Also, as I have spoke about before, it is important to be conscious of waste. If you buy a whole chicken, all of the chicken can be used in meals and even the carcass can be used to make stocks or soups. This not only prevents waste, it also reduces costs.
How can we help?
I love to eat at restaurants, especially ones that use local products. Juliane believes that we have the opportunity post lockdown to change our future and the way that we eat. Researching restaurants will enable us to choose the right places, places that source responsibly and are making positive steps to help create a more progressive hospitality sector.
Many restaurants have made changes to their menus, their energy consumption plus much more. Let’s support the local restaurants and communities that have made good changes, to show that we value them once lockdown is over. Restaurants that are part of the SRA are listed HERE.
And if you know of a local gem that is not on the list, then make sure you tell them about the SRA so that they can join and be part of the revolution.
Quick fire!
- What is your most positively memorable meal? Spaghetti with clams, looking over the water on my honeymoon in Sicily
- What food reminds you of childhood? Scrambled eggs with pieces of tortilla, I like to make them now for my children!
- What have you got for tea? Pearl barley with a black kale pesto and a fishcake.
Juliane’s links
My links
What do you think of this episode? Let me know!