Sustainability Edit - Ozone
For our new Sustainability Edit in collaboration with KeepCup, we speak to Bianca Tuckwell - Marketing Manager and Content Creator at Ozone Coffee - about the ways in which Ozone are going above and beyond in order to promote sustainability.
Please tell us a little bit about your café
Originally from a dairy farming town in rural New Zealand, our roots have shaped our philosophy towards coffee, food and hospitality. We support those with a respect for the land and who share our love for Papatūānuku (our earth mother). We want to help shape the future of our industry and surround ourselves with good people along the way. Our menus are created in the endeavour of sustainable and whole-cycle cooking. Nourish without sacrificing flavour. Dedication to provenance. Minimise waste. Our goal is to showcase the producers we work with, in the cup and on the plate. Their story is our story.
It is also important to us to have our roastery and eatery under the same roof: Coffee and people are at the core of what we do - and coffee is the conduit for our building relationships. Having an eatery alongside the roastery helps facilitate that union.
We understand that guests want to see where their food is coming from – and seeing your meal being prepared from scratch strengthens the connection between us and our customers, and our customers to their food or coffee. Transparency to the process is key in designing our spaces – there aren’t any additives or detractions. We roast with care and attention, and we create our dishes with care and attention too.
Old Street has been our home since 2012 and in 2019 we are humbled to be in the position to open a new Eatery in Bethnal Green. We wouldn't be where we are without the support of our community - the creative, the driven, the spirited. It is thanks to our people and our customers that we have the opportunity to continue our growth.
How do you support sustainability in your coffee shop?
We place huge importance on building meaningful relationships with, and investing in, coffee producers who work hard toward sustainability betterment.
Our dedicated Sustainability Co-ordinator and Exec Chef – Joe O’Connell. facilitates the process of making us as holistically sustainable as possible in our retail space by championing local suppliers and working to minimise waste as much as we can.
How have customers responded to your sustainability efforts?
While we are grateful that our customers are engaging positively with our efforts, to us it’s about leading by example. We use spent steamed milk to make our ricotta cheese and more recently we switched from salmon to fresh water trout following the overwhelming evidence against intensive salmon farming being too conclusive to ignore.
What advice do you have for coffee shops trying to implement sustainability initiatives?
- Lead by example.
- Best practice can sometimes be a blue sky scenario and feel unachievable – creative best fit changes – no matter how small it all makes a difference.
- Operate with a triple bottom line approach: an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental and financial.
- Set goals and stay accountable. We are working toward our first report next year to share our wins and gaping holes – keep an eye out for our upcoming Journal publication (out November!) which features Sustinere, a special section showcasing our relationships, practices and goals.
How do you tackle the use of single-use cups being used?
We continue to encourage and incentivise customers to use their own cups and work with suppliers who use the best materials possible.
Ozone Coffee's new London Roastery will be opening early October in Bethnal Green, London.