- How does LOWE incorporate circular economy principles into its operations?
Everything we do at LOWE starts with “How do we make sure that at the end of this we are wasting as little as possible.” For example;
When creating a new menu, if we want to have a protein dish that we know will have offcuts or leftovers from the dish, our next question is how can we incorporate those offcuts into another dish to ensure nothing is wasted.
We refuse to have single use plastic inside the venue as it would end with us. We have had a lot of suppliers that deliver goods to us in single use plastic, we politely ask them to change they way the deliver to us our we can no longer work with them, some were unable to change and so we changed where we got those good from where others listened and pivoted to cardboard for our deliveries. These are the type of vendors we want to work with and will continue to work with in the future.
We try to do everything ourselves in house as much as possible. This ensures we know the process of everything we serve to our guests in LOWE has as little waste as possible, from frementing our own Kombuhca to dry aging our meat, we know what has been wasted or not and in doing so we can implement ways to reduce any such waste.
- What innovative sustainability practices have you adopted that set your brand apart in your industry?
We like to think that sustainability isn’t established through one grand gesture but rather doing a thousand little things right everyday. There are the obviouse things we do like recycling, no single use plastic, no straws, etc. however, something we do that you might not see every restaurant do is our kitchen garden.
We are lucky enough to have a space for the team to plant thier own garden. In it we grow produce such as chillies, cherry tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage, mint, rosemary, etc. Some of these items you will see make it into the restuarant, particularly in our beverages as garnishes where the larger items get used in meals for our staff or they can take it home to their own kitchens.
We fertalize the garden with all the organic waste from the kitchen. For example, we make our freshly squeezed juices in house and most places may throw away the rine that’s left over. We take that and mix it with our spent coffee beans, compost it and reintroduce it into the garden. The garden is right beside the kids play area as well and we encourage parents to take their kids and walk through the garden and if they see anything ripe that they like, to pick it and take it home with them.
It helps everyone involved see something tangible from the efforts put in. We also have goodie bags for kids to to take home that involves a a sachet with seeds from the garden to take home and try and plant themselves.
- How do you track and evaluate the environmental impact of your business beyond compliance?
We have our internal checks that we do to make sure we’re making the impact we want to see however the best way we found is through self audits through third party companies.
We recenlty engaged with a company called SeaFood Souq that helps us track and compile a lot of information from all actors within our seafood supply chain, from there we can make informed decisions to continue with certain suppliers based on their transparency with LOWE. We have then incorporated a QR code on our online menu where guests can click through to see the origin of our products, how it arrived, etc.
We have also engaged with a company called the Sustainable Restaurant Association in which we complete the Food Made Good assessment to see where we may be lacking in certain areas within LOWE in order to address it and make it better. This looks into things such as provenance, how much of our menu as animal proteins vs vegetarian, sourcing, staff fairness, carbon footprint, etc. It’s easy to sit around and say we do things, it’s another thing to have all that information readily avaialable to cross check internally and inevitable share with others that are interested.
- What are your thoughts on the costs of sustainable products or services—how do you balance affordability and impact?
If a restaurant invests in an expenive machine and only see’s the immediate price tag and not the other benefits then I would say they are looking at it the wrong way. It takes a lot of time and effort and it’s won’t neccassarily be easy but that’s what makes the journey worth it. On a long enough timeline, I would argue that a restaurant can end up saving by implementing certain services or changing operations but that’s not why we do the things we do.
It was an easy choice for LOWE to operate as we do because it was what we wanted to do. It wasn’t a matter of whether it would cost more or not, it was because we wanted too. We have actually gone with suppliers that were more expensive due to the fact that the other suppliers way of operting wasn’t in line with our ethos. Fortunatley what we’re seeing lately is suppliers also changing they way they operate which is making things a lot easier as healhty competition is usually reflected in lower prices and in particular in the UAE we are seeing a lot of companies shifting towards susatinable options such as vertical farming, more and more farms are popping up, and all of this can only be beneficial to everyone involved as the price of entry is dropping.
- How do you educate your customers or clients about the importance of adopting sustainable habits?
LOWE is a MICHELIN Green Star recepient, to most people, they don’t know what that means. When our guests ask us about it we love to take them through our journey, what we do on the day to day, walk them around and show them what we just told them about LOWE in action.
We partnered with one of our suppliers Dibba Bay for the Oyster Reef Creation Project where we collect our spent oyster shells that we served to our guests, and bring them back to Dibba Bay where they then reintroduce the shells to the reef to support the habitat and enhance the growth of the native oyster species. When our guests order oysters we explain this to them and they are usually thrilled and want to know more. Sustainability is best when information is shared and if our guests want to learn more, we’re more than happy to take the time and tell them about it.
This is most obvious with LOWE’s “Waste Not” Dinners where we take what most kitchen would consider waste (think stems, offcuts, etc.) and would be destined for the bin and repurpose it through differeent skills, techniques and ingenuity and create an 8-10 course meal highligthing these items. The entire night is to teach people that sustainability doesn’t have to be boring or bland but can in turn be fun, full or flavour and most importantly to Waste Not. A recent hoghlight was our chefs creation of croissant ice cream.
- Can you share a recent initiative or achievement that exemplifies your commitment to environmental stewardship?
One of our suppliers is Pernaud Ricard. They are a company that puts in a lot of effort in the sustanability space. We recently worked with them hosting their “Bar World of Tomorrow” where they invite any bartender interested in learning more to partake in their free course. They hold it in their offices but asked if we would be interested in helping them host it at LOWE so that they participants could see what their learning on the powerpoint looks like in real life.
LOWE hosted the Pernaud Ricard team and all their particpants and walked them through what we do, we provided them lunch using some produce from our kitchen garden and at the end of the day traded emails and phone numbers so that we could discuss ideas and we created a little community, a place to ask questions about things like where to get biodegradable takeaway containers or bees wax food wraps and so on.
- What advice would you give to businesses trying to implement sustainable practices without compromising quality or profitability?
At the end of the day, you have to be proud of what you put on the plate for your guests and sometimes there has to be some give and take when it come to quality and profitability.
The best advice I can give is do your reasearch, take your time, talk to others in the industry. You’ll very quickly realize that others are happy to help others with their journey and are more than happy to share their experiences, mistakes, wins, etc. Most importantly you have to realize that it’s a never ending journey. Once one procedure is in place, it doesn’t mean it won’t change in six months. It’s a game of perpetual adaptation and research and just because you don’t see the solution to an issue today, doesn’t mean it won’t be there tomorrow or that even, you take the lead and debvelop that solution.