索菲·安德烈（Sophie Andre），创始人兼董事Elysia餐饮从交付早餐袋到伦敦的人们的工作场所，再到喂食Airbnb，Wework和政府机构等公司，同时在供应链中创建了一个较小的循环经济枢纽，以供食品浪费。
Named after the Ancient Greeks’ location of the blissful afterlife, Elysia Catering is a social enterprise. To date, its breakfasts and aperitifs have “saved from waste more than seven metric tons of artisan British food and served over 19,000 people around London,” according to the company’s website.
Setting up a food project in London, where the survival rate of businesses over five years is 39.3 percent—the lowest in the United Kingdom according to the国家统计局—is no easy feat. But the city also provides fertile ground for waste-cutting initiatives, as itsfood and environment strategies目的是到2030年将食物浪费减少50％。英国的食品行业抛弃了每年190万吨食品, of which almost 58 percent is avoidable, according to U.K. charity WRAP.
Sophie arrived in London in 2016 and wanted to open up shop and serve high-quality, but accessible food. “Organic was very expensive, so I got in touch with small farmers to work together and look at different options, making it easier for the location and price,” she said to Food Tank. Collaborating with two farmers revealed that a lot of good produce was going to waste because of imperfections or minor damage, Andre explains, which led her to think that she could tackle these losses from the retail side.
决定为伦敦的办公室人员做早餐，然后在伦敦最古老的批发和工匠食品市场之一的行政区市场上接近一家面包师，后者剩下了酸面包。“面包店有大量的盈余 - 烘烤非常便宜，存储的成本要高得多，”安德烈说。
The sourdough and the marmalade Andre was making herself were the starting point for the office delivered breakfasts, but everything took off just a few months later after she got a gig to cater for an 80-people event. “11 bites per person. I thought I can do it,” she says about the switch to more diverse audiences and foods.
Partnerships with more suppliers in London and Somerset followed, including with cheesemongers and beverage producers. “It opened the perspective of the business. There are a lot of leftover ingredients across all sectors, all high-quality products in surplus for different reasons. Something always goes wrong,” Andre suggests with regard to accidents in food packaging that don’t affect the quality, but make them ineligible for use by suppliers or don’t make the supermarket shelf cut.
Elysia buys everything at slightly discounted prices and picks up or gets the food delivered. “We definitely want to support the suppliers and what we pay for goes directly to their margins.” Providing value for all those along the supply chain “within a dynamic ethical food ecosystem” is part of Elysia’s mission.
And catering with food surplus is not done randomly. Menus change seasonally, and range from confit chicken on spiced bread to quiche and cured meats, all the way to用剩余面包制成的啤酒。Elysia’s work has won a绿色苹果环境最佳实践奖2018and was shortlisted for其他奖项为他们的可持续资源管理。
Andre thinks there is still a lot of space on the market for similar businesses tackling waste.
“There is a gigantic quantity of surplus food and definitely room for other businesses to make use it. It would be great to see other players joining this market as it would be a very good sign for London’s battle on waste.”
