St Edmund Hall Kitchen goes gas-free

During the summer, the College Kitchen officially became gas-free, replacing its gas chargrill – the last piece of equipment fuelled by gas – with a brand-new electric chargrill. This move away from gas provides multiple important benefits such as improving the working environment for Kitchen staff and allowing us to reduce our carbon footprint and energy bills.

In particular, gas-less cooking is better for the health and wellbeing of kitchen staff and diners by reducing air pollution – cooking with gas stoves creates nitrogen dioxide and releases additional airborne particles which are lung irritants. Gas-free solutions also reduce street-level air pollution around commercial kitchens.

In addition to these updates, the Kitchen is also already involved in a number of initiatives to reduce its environmental impact, including:

The Winnow waste system:

Installed in September 2022, this system has multiple uses, including helping us to record our plate waste in the Servery, which has been a great way of monitoring portion sizes for each dish. Since using this system, plate waste has been reduced – you can find a weekly update in Ted-E-News and on the screens around Hall. Our students and staff can help to continue these efforts by scraping any leftover food on their plates at mealtimes into the designated Winnow bin in Wolfson Hall.

Winnow waste also records the over-production of food coming back from the Servery; this data is logged and sent to the Executive Head Chef and informs future food production to help reduce waste. It also monitors “unused food”, e.g., vegetable and fruit trimmings, produced during food preparation. The Kitchen team now incorporate “unused foods” into dishes where possible, which is a great way of introducing extra flavour as well as being environmentally friendly. For example, broccoli stalks, which are full of flavour and nutrients, work really well in stir fries and soups, and carrot skins can be dehydrated and ground down to a powder for garnishing.

The OxFarmtoFork scheme:

Since last Easter break, to increase the amount of locally produced food we serve at College, we have been using local suppliers through the OxFarmtoFork short food supply chain initiative set up by Good Food Oxfordshire.

Short food supply chains have multiple advantages, including supporting the local economy and community, enabling producers to keep a larger slice of the profit, and reducing packaging and food miles.Look out for weekly updates on the local produce being used via the @sehkitchen Instagram account and also on our menus.

 

Visit our Sustainability pages to find out more about how we are transforming the Hall’s estate into a sustainable and environmentally thriving site for future generations of Aularians.