Skip to main content or footer.
To accelerate change towards an environmentally restorative and socially progressive hospitality sector, the SRA works with businesses from across food service, as well as like-minded industry bodies, campaign groups and businesses that supply the sector through their signature programme, Food Made Good. This rating is the world’s largest and most comprehensive sustainability audit for Food Service Businesses. It allows businesses to take a 360° view of their actions, validate their hard work, benchmark against a broad community of businesses, and set goals for the future.
After evaluating macroeconomic trends, insights from our team, clients, consumers and industry experts, we have developed a sustainability strategy which takes into consideration the forces that are impacting the global food system, our industry and our operations.
We have chosen to focus on the three priority areas where we can make a greater positive impact to both our business and wider society: health and wellbeing, the environment and our supply chain and the wider community. With targeted actions where we can make an enhanced impact.
We always consider the social, economic and environmental impact alongside the typical price and quality considerations as we want to ensure a more positive impact in the wider world.
Ways to be Well is our holistic health and wellness programme created with the planet in mind. It is based on the wellness pillars of nutrition, activity, mindfulness, mental health and sleep.
Waste Knot
Over 7% of what’s grown in the UK never makes it to a plate according to WRAP. That is more than £1.2 billion worth of perfectly decent fruit and vegetables going to waste and landfill each year.
The squandering of nature’s bounty drives us crazy which is why we work with Waste Knot and their network of farmers to use unwanted large or small pieces of fruit and vegetables within our seasonal menus.
Waste Knot harvests all the fruit and veg that do not meet supermarket trading standards, due to them being overgrown or in abundance and repurposes them to a variety of our businesses that are more than happy to purchase them and use them in seasonal menus. This avoids the food from ending up in landfills.
With our on-going partnership with Waste Knot we will help wage this war against waste.
We are proud to have partnered with the FoodSteps.
Foodsteps uses Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions from food across its life: from production on the farm, to processing, packaging and transportation through to consumption and end-of-life.
The A-E ratings categorise food according to its ‘carbon intensity’ (carbon emissions per kilogram of food produced).
Our partnerships with purpose have enabled us to bring to life industry-leading initiatives, that not only align with our values but help minimise our environmental impact and 'do some good' in our communities, below are some of examples of our partnerships.
Fare Share
We are proud partners of Fareshare, the biggest food bank operation of its kind in the UK. FareShare operates a national network of charitable food redistributors, made up of 18 independent organisations. They take good quality surplus food from the food industry and deliver it to nearly 8,000 charities and community groups across the UK. Each week, they provide enough food to create almost a million meals for vulnerable people.
Find out more
Foodinate is a multi-award-winning social enterprise, tackling food poverty and homelessness in the UK. Restaurant Associates have teamed up to make sure every Blend 53 coffee sold gives a little something back to the local community, on a national scale.
Find out more
OLIO connects neighbours with each other and with local businesses so surplus food can be shared, not thrown away. This could be food nearing its sell-by date in local stores or, even on a domestic level, spare home-grown vegetables, bread from your baker, or the groceries in the fridge that could go to waste.
OLIO is successfully used in several our sites nationwide, allowing us to better manage our food waste and whilst helping our communities at the same time.
Find out more
Refettorio Felix
Refettorio Felix serves meals to vulnerable people in a home-from-home environment, grounded in the social, physical, emotional and environmental impact of a shared meal made from surplus ingredients
The team at Refettorio serve 130 meals each day and the ethos behind the service is dining with dignity.
Restaurant Associates have supported Refettorio Felix for many years by donating excess food supplies and volunteering at the centre. We have also supported Refettorio Felix in designing ‘Step Up to The Plate’ which helps individuals at the centre to learn more about nutrition, cooking and also encourages a pre-employability programme for those potentially interested in working in hospitality.
The programme includes modules on culinary skills, health and safety, barista and front-of-house training, as well as CV writing and interview skills.
Find out more
The Felix Project
A food redistribution charity in London fighting food waste and hunger.
They rescue good, surplus food from the food industry that cannot be sold and would otherwise go to waste. The food is high-quality and nutritious, including a great proportion of fresh fruit and vegetables, baked goods, salads, meat and fish. They collect or receive food from over 539 suppliers, including from some of our Restaurant Associates sites. This food is then sorted and delivered to almost 1000 front-line charities, primary schools and holiday programmes in London. That way, food that would have gone to waste is reaching vulnerable people, homeless, people with mental health or those who simply cannot afford to buy regular, healthy food.
Find out more
Dignity at Work
Our commitment to fairness and inclusion runs through all that we do. We want to attract and retain a workforce that reflects and represents diverse communities. We want to ensure that as a business, diversity and differences are actively celebrated and alongside this, we are fully committed to eliminating discrimination.
Real Living Wage
Restaurant Associates is a proud member of the Living Wage Foundation, and we promote the Real Living Wage through their Recognised Service Provider scheme.
Paying a Living Wage makes a positive difference to the wellbeing and dignity of our colleagues, to our client’s reputation in their communities, to customer service and as a critical enabler for a fairer society, helping increase social mobility for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Mental Health First Aiders
We have made a commitment to ensuring that our teams have real tools to enable them to support themselves and each other.
Mental health and mental wellbeing are a real focus for our community, and we have several schemes to assist our associates with mental health issues alongside certified mental health first aiders in each site.
Equal Opportunities
Our Equal Opportunities Policy covers the nine protected characteristics of the UK Equality Act and is designed to ensure that current and potential employees and workers are offered the same opportunities regardless of their age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.
