Cafe’s four in a row at food awards Prize for Loch Leven
The RSPB Loch Leven Cafe The team at RSPB Loch Leven’s cafe are celebrating this week after receiving a gold ‘Food for Life Served Here’ award for the fourth year in a row.
The award, which celebrates locallysourced, additive and GM free, sustainable food which meets animal welfare standards, was given to the popular Kinross-shire cafe for its commitment to using local food on its menu.
As a nature conservation charity, RSPB say they are keen to lead the way in environmentally-friendly food, which reduces the impact of nature reserve catering on the environment by cutting high-carbon emissions. In order to achieve this, the Loch Leven cafe makes all its cakes in house and sources its organic meat from Peelham Farm in Berwickshire.
The cafe also boasts having 70 per cent organic food on offer that supports wildlife.
It also uses bird-friendly coffee grown specially for the RSPB from Nicaragua, and refuses to serve tuna because they cannot guarantee its sustainability because of fish stocks.
Dougie Rutherford, the catering manager at Loch Leven, said: “We’re delighted to have maintained our gold standard for the fourth year.
“It’s been a real team effort. Food production can have a massive effect on nature and we’re passionate about producing great food while looking after wildlife and the environment.
“Our menu is simple, tasty and ethical and refelcts the aims of the RSPB by trying to source food from places that help give nature a home, such as organic farms.
“People often tell us that they love our food and we’re very proud of that, but even prouder that we make this food using ingredients farmed in a way taht looks after birds and other wildlife, which is what the RSPB as a nature conservation charity is all about.”
Rich Watts, senior Food for Life Served Here manager at the Soil Association, added: “Food for Life Served Here is seeing real growth across the visitor attraction sector, with caterers recognising that visitors place real value on eating local, fresh and honest food - the award is a great way to demonstrate a commitment to honest, ethical and sustainable food and also helps venues to redcue their environmental impact by looking closer to home for produce.
“The RSPB has done a fantastic job in achieving Food for Life Served Here awards across 11 of its sites, and it’s particularly pleasing to see some of those venues have gone the extra mile to achieve the gold award level.
“It’s achievements like theirs that will encourage other big organisations to review their food offer.”