Dreaming Of A Green Christmas
In a bid to reduce global waste, leading hospitality group Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has launched its Zero Waste Christmas initiative.
Christmas is traditionally a time for big blow-outs and nonstop indulgence, especially at the luxury end of the scale where budgets are there to be demolished and an appetite for the finer things means no expense is spared, often at great cost to the environment.
In a bid to reduce global waste, this week the leading hospitality group Fairmont Hotels & Resorts launched its Zero Waste Christmas initiative. Fairmont, which manages The Savoy in London among a number of international luxury establishments, aims to help its guests enjoy a greener Christmas this year with a series of recipe ideas and sustainability tips from some of its top chefs.
Its collection of Zero Waste Christmas recipes encourages those dining at the hotels to make the most of their Christmas leftovers. Dishes such as leftover turkey ragout, turkey and Brussels sprout spring rolls, Eton mess and strawberry rhubarb cobbler have been devised by chefs including Matthaios Tsistrakis and Chris Niven, as Fairmont’s culinary experts look for ways to cut kitchen waste. It is hoped this new collection of recipes will inspire guests to reduce food waste at home. After all, as most of us know, sometimes meals made from Christmas dinner leftovers are just as tasty as the main event.
Frederic Breuil, executive chef at Fairmont Le Montreux Palace, Switzerland, says: “Eating every edible part of an ingredient not only helps reduce food waste but also ensures we get the most out of its nutrients. Most of a vegetable’s nutrients are found within the skin, so I always seek to find different ways to include all of the vegetable in my dishes, from brushing the skin before cooking to incorporating the ends into delicious sauces.” Adds Soner Kesgin, executive chef at Fairmont Quasar Istanbul: “The wonderful thing about leftovers is that they can easily be transformed into another delicious meal by using ingredients that you usually keep in your kitchen cupboard.” This anti-waste initiative comes as the hotel group recently revealed that most luxury travellers consider it important that their hotel has environmentally sustainable practices.
According to Fairmont’s second Luxury Insights Report, four out of five respondents want kitchens to use locally sourced ingredients and are more likely to visit hotels that implement good environmental policies. Zero Waste Christmas is Fairmont’s latest sustainable initiative which follows a scheme at Fairmont St Andrews to eradicate plastic bottles in partnership with Scottish Water, and at The Savoy, which was the first London hotel to initiate a food waste recycling programme. As part of leading hospitality group Accor, Fairmont is committed to making food waste reduction a priority of its Planet 21 sustainability charter, through initiatives such as measuring kitchen waste, reducing buffet quantities and educating staff, partners and guests.
The Zero Waste Christmas tips and recipes are available online here