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Norse Group go organic and reduce meat for more climate friendly meals
Norse Group, a Norfolk and Suffolk based caterer are enhancing their meal offers by incorporating more climate friendly practices. Joining the Cool Food Pro project as a pilot site has enabled them to adopt additional sustainable working practices to further reduce their carbon impact.
Healthy, nutritious meals have always been a priority for Norse. They use high quality ingredients, much of which is also locally sourced, to provide seasonal and nutritionally balanced meals in schools, colleges, care homes and businesses. They currently hold the Soil Association Food for Life Served Here Silver award for their use of ethical ingredients that support the local economy and are better for health, nature and our climate.
Norse were eager to become a Cool Food Pro pilot site so they could incorporate additional sustainable choices into their menus. They were also excited to be able to share the resulting carbon savings with their clients and customers.
Supported by the Cool Food Pro team to identify different target areas for improved sustainability, Norse chose to work with two of their Norfolk schools on including more organic ingredients and reducing the meat in their beef Bolognese.
In their Norfolk schools, organic yoghurt is now offered on a daily basis, and all beef served is also organic. These changes will improve water quality by 100% and have a positive impact on biodiversity.
The schools were already piloting an innovative new product Novo Farina, which uses locally grown whole yellow peas to make replacements for meat and wheat-based ingredients for the food industry and retailers. The trial aligned well with changes supported through the Cool Food Pro carbon calculator to use less but better meat and to increase plant protein. Norse committed to swapping 10g of beef per portion with the pea-based meat replacement, adapting their recipe to ensure it not only tastes as good but also provides the children with the same nutritional content.
Cooks, Business Account Managers and customers have been receptive to the moves, so they now plan to reduce the carbon impact of their meals even further by incorporating changes in practice across more schools and their care home sector.
Craig Neale, Head of Catering, recently spoke of Norse’s experiences of working on the project and using the Cool Food Pro carbon calculator.
Craig said,
"The tool is user friendly and easy to navigate. The visual effects of the savings you're making are a real positive and help present the data in a really meaningful way."
His aspirations to integrate Cool Food Pro across further areas of the business lead to Craig sharing his experiences of working on the project with catering sector leaders and chefs across the country at the Cool Food Pro Cross Channel Forum in London last month.
Environmental impact: The catering team reduced the portion size of meat by 10g in the beef Bolognese on 205 servings. This was served once in September and October and resulted in a CO2e reduction of 74kg, an improvement in water quality of 12,607L and biodiversity savings of 4.11m2.
The tool is user friendly and easy to navigate. The visual effects of the savings you're making are a real positive and help present the data in a really meaningful way.
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