Sustainable Catering
Attending an event at our venue? Learn all about our sustainable catering strategy and how our partnership with Sodexo Live! is paving the way forwards for a more considered, environmentally-friendly – but still delicious – menu for your visit.
Sodexo Live!
Sodexo Live! is The ACC Liverpool Group’s on-site catering partner. But, they’re not just about delivering extraordinary experiences – they also want to have a positive impact on the lives of colleagues, clients, and customers in the communities where we work and serve.
For starters, Sodexo is a global leader in tackling food waste and is committed to reducing it by 50% by 2025. Starting by addressing food waste from the beginning of the customer journey, they work closely with event organisers to prioritise this as a top goal throughout their event experience.
Klimato
Sodexo Live! has partnered with an organization called Klimato to calculate the carbon footprint of all dishes served on site. This footprint is determined by factors such as the ingredients used, the production method, and the country of origin. To inform your decision-making, carbon labels displaying this information are on our client menus and visitor catering units. This also serves as an educational tool to discourage over-ordering and allows organisers, delegates, and visitors to make informed, sustainable catering choices.
Additionally, at the conclusion of an event, a report is generated to detail the total carbon footprint of the catering provided. This information is incredibly useful for the continuous improvement of our sustainable catering strategy.
Liverpool Zero Waste
Food donation is a great solution reducing food waste, and something we are extremely passionate about here at ACC Liverpool. Sodexo Live! partners with charities across the city, including Liverpool Zero Food Waste Community, to donate leftover food as part of our sustainable catering solutions. Liverpool Zero Waste Community is a charity that collects surplus food and redistributes it to the local community. Their mission is to save food from landfill whilst simultaneously tackling the shame and stigma sometimes associated with the use of foodbanks by using terms like ‘saving’ and ‘re-homing’ leftover food.
Since partnering with Liverpool Zero Food Waste in April 2023 we have donated over 3.8 tonnes of surplus food, equating to over 7,000 meals.
ORCA
As part of our sustainable catering strategy, we have an innovative solution for handling leftover food that cannot be donated to the local community – for example hot dishes or easily perishable items.
ORCA is a machine that uses a combination of air, water, and microbiology to convert food waste into a safe liquid. This liquid can be disposed of through the sanitary sewer system. The technology simulates the biological processes found in our bodies and other living organisms, creating an ideal environment for microorganisms to digest the food waste. At the wastewater treatment plant, the liquid can be transformed into renewable and sustainable energy. This approach effectively eliminates the need for food waste to be sent to landfills, reducing both carbon dioxide and methane gas emissions.
Since we started using the ORCA machine in April of last year, we have diverted over 14,500kg of food waste from landfill, which is the equivalent of a fully loaded double decker bus!
Olleco
Cooking oils often present an issue within sustainable catering solutions – as it can be difficult to dispose of in an environmentally-safe way. To resolve this, we work with Olleco, who collect our used cooking oil to create high quality biofuels for transport, powering the vehicles used to collect it. Whilst you can make biodiesel from many different crops, this places a burden on land needed to grow food and could contribute to deforestation and threaten biodiversity.
Creating biodiesel from something that would otherwise go to waste, makes it one of the greenest possible alternatives to fossil fuels. Used cooking oils and fats are the ideal to refine into biodiesel, particularly because they can’t be recycled into either human or the animal food supply chains. Due to the food safety risk they pose, this is by far the most sustainable way to dispose of them. Using biodiesel in adapted vehicles reduces carbon emissions by 89% compared to fossil diesel.
Bottled Water Coolers
As part of our wider sustainable catering and sustainability strategy, we no longer use single-use plastic bottles onsite. Instead, by introducing reusable water cartridges we’ve contributed to saving 23.7 billion single-use plastic bottles going to landfills or our oceans each year.
Our water suppliers ensure that bottles are returned, sterilised, and reused. In fact, on average the bottles are used up to 50 times over 5 years before they reach end of life. When that occurs, the bottles are repurposed and recycled to make other products such as pens and rulers for schools, again helping to avoid contributing to landfill.
Nella – Chopping board Resurfacing
Since March 2024, we have engaged with Nella to re-surface our kitchen chopping boards. Instead, Nella takes the existing boards, skims the top surface, and sends them back to us like new! This eradicates the need to send the old ones to landfill and buy new ones, reducing the total waste and allowing us to get more use from each chopping board we purchase. Plus, the skimmed plastic can even be recycled into other products.
On average, the service saves a huge 6,000 chopping boards from landfill per week!
Interested in learning more? Find out about Sodexo Live's sustainable catering strategy with ACC Liverpool.