Gröna Lund is joining the fight against food waste!

Here at Djurgården, we’re working hard to reduce food waste. We are 30 restaurants on one island, and together we can make a big difference. We inspire and learn from each other, so what better than to highlight some great examples!

UpCycle Challange

At Gröna Lund, which is part of the Parks and Resorts group, they work actively to inspire and motivate their employees to reduce food waste, and in 2019, they launched the ‘UpCycle Challenge’. They invited all the chefs in the group to an ‘Inspiration day’, which focused on how to use up food that would normally be thrown away. They then started a challenge between the park’s different kitchens; the challenge being to reduce food waste; to waste ‘the least’ and come up with creative solutions for how leftovers can be used instead of thrown away. 

It’s since become a bit of a sport – a team effort – between the different restaurants, where an ingredient that would have been thrown away can go from one kitchen to another and become a key ingredient. In every kitchen, it’s possible to follow the whole process digitally and measure how much waste has been produced. This makes for an easy way to measure results, but it’s also a way of inspiring one another through seeing what other kitchens are doing.

And here is an example:

At Tyrol, where the Mamma Mia! The Party show is held, guests get through a lot of hummus! Previously, litres of aquafaba (the liquid in tinned chickpeas) were poured out every night, but now it’s used to make vegan mayonnaise. If there’s any left over still, that then gets sent over to the Classic Café, where they use it to make their levain bread. And when the bread at the Classic Café is no longer fresh, it goes to the Kaskad restaurant and becomes a key ingredient in their Panzanella dish (Italian bread salad).

This brilliant idea saw Parks and Resorts awarded the ‘Sustainability Award’ from the Sustainable Tourism Network in 2019. So congratulations and hats off to them!