Eating Better
By Ailbhe Elliott
Ailbhe Elliott is a volunteer for Bristol Food Network. She lives in Bristol and works for the surplus food app Too Good To Go. Her passion is ensuring we create local food systems which are sustainable, resilient and serve everyone in the community.
Ailbhe meets some of the Bristol caterers that make sustainability and community a priority.
Houria (meaning freedom) is a certified social enterprise in Bristol who “elevate and celebrate the gifts and experience of migrant women and female survivors of slavery via meaningful and safe training and employment” through their catering service – you can fill out Houria’s catering request form to find out more about the service.
With a unique combination of recipes and skills from their team, Houria provides ethical and vegan private catering for events and gatherings.
Salha, a team leader at Houria explains what the organisation means to her, “I’ve grown a lot from Houria. The other Sisters as well. When we talk, we learn a lot from Houria. Especially the differences (between Bristol and Sudan). The role we play in our countries and here is quite different. (When) we work in the kitchen, we are learning this.”
The organisation also offers a Friday Feast for £15 per person, available for delivery in BS5 or collection from The Farm in St Werburgh, giving you a taste of their Afro-vegan dishes at home.
Want to support the fantastic work that Houria does? Donations and volunteers are essential to their mission to bring freedom through food.
Get regular updates on Houria’s journey and discover how you can get involved by signing up for their newsletter here.
Square Food Foundation is a community charity based in Knowle that use events catering to support their food education work in schools and the local community.
The organisation focuses on sourcing local seasonal and sustainable food. They involve students in their catering events to deliver on their core mission of food education.
Square Food Foundation’s founder Barny Haughton highlights the importance of the event catering element of their organisation: “apart from earning money for the charity, it allows us to talk about our food education work, to include students in a real-life experience of hospitality and to support the farmers, growers and producers we depend on for a sustainable food future”.
To find out more or to book catering through Square Food Foundation email lucy@squarefoodfoundation.co.uk or ring on 0117 462 2686.
Want to get involved? Square Food Foundation is supported by donations and volunteers, and always welcome help with fundraising initiatives to support their mission.
These two Bristol caterers offer an environment-friendly service, free from plastic and packaging with a strong focus on seasonal and sustainable food.
Stocked Food
Stoked Food offers bespoke private catering for events, and a lunch delivery service to home and workplace. Both services commit to being planet-friendly by not using any single-use plastic and only cooking with plants, alongside recycling as much as possible and sharing unsold food with the homeless community.
To keep their carbon footprint down, Stoked Food “try to source as organically, locally and sustainably as possible – helping local companies and communities”.
As well as catering and delivery, you can try their delicious plant-based creations at both St Nicholas Street Food Market on Tuesdays and Fridays 11am-2.30pm or City Road, St Pauls on Friday and Mondays 5.30-9pm, and 6-9pm on Sunday.
The Vegetable Diva
The Vegetable Diva provides packaging and plastic-free nutritious food with a no-waste philosophy, and offers a sustainable, bespoke plant-based catering service for events.
Produce is sourced locally or grown on their own “No Dig Diva Plot”, menus are seasonal and vegan or vegetarian to keep their environmental impact to a minimum.
Alongside catering, The Vegetable Diva offer tasty food for collection from their store at Millennium Promenade, or available for “pedal-powered” delivery to offices in central Bristol.
Enquire at info@thevegetablediva.com.
If you’re a good food business helping transform Bristol into a sustainable food city, get in touch using the form below so that we can shine a light on your work.
So, what change do you want to see happen that will transform food in Bristol by 2030? Do you already have an idea for how Bristol can make this happen? Join the conversation now.
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