The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Giraffe delivers goods for vegetarian feast at climate conference
PRODUCE: Social enterprise group provides enough to feed 120 people at Challenge Fund awards night
When the organisers of a major climate change conference demanded local produce for a lavish vegetarian feast, there was one group of foodies who were only too happy to help out.
Perth-based social enterprise Giraffe was called to supply fresh vegetables for the two-day Keep Scotland Beautiful event at the city’s concert hall.
Organisers said they wanted ingredients from within the shortest possible distance to feed around 120 people at last night’s Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) awards ceremony.
Giraffe, which runs two city-centre cafes, was able to supply crates of heritage carrots, beetroots and parsnips from its allotment at Upper Springland.
Sarah Russell, from Giraffe, said: “We are always keen to promote the idea of getting food from garden to fork, so this has been great for our trainees.
“We provided them with about 30kg of vegetables from just one mile away and I don’t think you can get more locally sourced than that.”
“Managed to provide them with about 30kg of vegetables from just one mile away and I don’t think you can get more locally sourced than that SARAH RUSSELL
Concert hall head chef Martin Buchan said: “We were tasked with coming up with a vegetarian/vegan menu for the awards ceremony dinner, using ingredients that were as local as possible.
“Giraffe was our first thought. All the ingredients were specially grown by request.”
They were used to produce a menu featuring vegetable wellington, crumble made with pears and apples and a blueberry and Perth gin mousse.
The conference opened with an awards ceremony on Tuesday night.
Among the six community-led organisations honoured at the show was Greener Kirkcaldy, which picked up the Outstanding Contribution award.
The organisation has run nine CCF projects to help its local community reduce carbon emissions in the areas of energy, food, waste and transport.
In addition to raising awareness of climate change, the projects have helped the community to improve carbon literacy and build skills, experience and confidence.
Through their CCF work, Greener Kirkcaldy have developed their capacity to take action on climate change as an organisation, in the local community and Fife-wide.
The CCF is a Scottish Government grants programme.
It is managed and administered by Keep Scotland Beautiful, which provides funding and support for community groups to tackle climate change through projects that are designed to reduce carbon emissions.