Working together to reduce food waste: Café Troppo

Café Troppo is a sustainable cafe committed to working with and within our environment serving the finest organic coffee and food. Conveniently located at 42 Whitmore Square in Adelaide, it offers variety of fresh and healthy dishes using South Australian suppliers. We asked the owner and manager Alex Harris couple of questions about his approach to the organic waste and the food recycling best practices.

Q: Why does Café Troppo feel it’s important to recycle food waste?

Alex: Our focus as a cafe has always been on minimising our environmental footprint . We aim to provide a food and beverage service without having negative impact on our environment. So this is at the forefront of decisions for everything that comes into the cafe and everything that goes out. Food waste is a massive waste element from the cafe, and it is so important to seperate it from landfill and recycle it as compost . We used to do it ourselves in the early days, but as things got busier , it was too much to keep digging into my parents back yard . Thank goodness for Jeffries Food Organics Recycling Collection (F.O.R.C.) services, we simply just have our bin picked up twice a week and we know that it’s being recycled properly !

Q: What are 3 other sustainable initiatives  you do as a café owner that you feel makes a difference?

Alex: We only use plant based cleaning products, so as to not contribute harmful chemicals into the waterways. We minimise on all packaging from our suppliers, and have or own cafe gardener that provides a lot of our produce . Most of all we source everything we can locally , and  change our menu to the seasons and what is available from our state Each season.