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Mudbrick Vineyard and Restaurant - How monthly mountains
of kitchen waste can help produce award-winning cuisine
Situated
on Waiheke Island, 35 minutes from Auckland city centre, is Mudbrick
Vineyard and Restaurant. Renowned for its award-winning wines and
food dishes, it’s chefs have enjoyed international acclaim showcasing
the very best New Zealand ingredients. Now, this innovative restaurant
is also a five star example of successful large-scale kitchen waste recycling
in the hospitality industry.
With assistance from the Waiheke
Waste Resource Trust and Bokashi NZ, Mark Robinson, Mudbrick’s resident
gardener, has established a system for recycling up to 3 tonnes of kitchen
waste per month utilising Bokashi’s Compost-Zing. This is then put to
good use in the restaurant’s own veggie garden and waste disposal system.
After
fermenting the food waste in the Bokashi Compost-Zing, it is mixed with
a standard bark-based media and left to mature for 2-3 months. The mix
is then used as a high quality compost in Mudbrick’s onsite veggie garden,
providing a nourishing food source for the restaurant’s micro-greens,
and conditioning the soil with enriching microbes. Micro-greens are one
of the latest trends in fine dining, where plants such as cabbage, radishes
and numerous other vegetables and greens, are harvested as soon as their
tiny leaves become visible. The fresh greens and herbs are then used in
Mudbrick’s award-winning dishes.
Finally, the nutrient packed juice which results from the Bokashi fermenting
process is used in the restaurant’s septic tank system, as a natural and environmentally
friendly way of improving the efficiency of the system and reducing unpleasant
smells.
By
using the Bokashi Compost-Zing system to recycle it’s kitchen waste, Mudbrick
Vineyard and Restaurant is not only preventing tonnes of waste from entering
the landfill, it is also saving money in the purchase and transportation
of the traditional compost previously required to grow it’s micro-greens.
By using the Bokashi Compost-Zing system
to recycle it’s kitchen waste, Mudbrick Vineyard and Restaurant is not only
preventing tonnes of waste from entering the landfill, it is also saving money
in the purchase and transportation of the traditional compost previously required
to grow it’s micro-greens.
Read more:
Mudbrick
Vineyard and Restaurant
Waiheke
Waste Resource Trust
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