RESTAURANT ZERO – aiming for 100% of zero

Ravintola Nolla (Restaurant Zero) in Helsinki, a zero-waste restaurant, is advocating a quietly effective campaign against the waste of any kind in its own operations
Three chefs who converged on the Finnish capital’s restaurant scene from abroad form the brains behind Nolla: Carlos Henriques from Portugal; Albert Franch Sunyer from Barcelona; and Luka Balac from Serbia.

“All three of us come from strong roots of producing our own food,” says Balac, “and we all felt very strongly that something was basically wrong with how things have been done with respect to waste of both food and food packaging – especially plastic, which is a huge problem. We arrived at the concept of zero waste. We don’t use any single-use plastic or anything that is not reusable.”

This approach changes how everything is done, from menu planning to the storage, but the idea is to make the concept part of the “package,” rather than using it as a sales gimmick or novelty.
Walk-in diners will not necessarily know that the water glasses are fashioned from bottles discarded by the Presidential Palace – a small but fine example of the circular economy approach. They might also be unaware that an on-site superfast composter gobbles up every morsel of food that customers don’t consume. The compost is returned to the small-scale local producers who provide the seasonal ingredients on the menu.

The uncompromising idea is to make zero waste normal and not the exception, ultimately even dissolving the draw of various apps that alert consumers to special offers on food that has passed its best-by date. Restaurants and stores need to change their management systems, says Balac, to make sure that overstocking doesn’t happen in the first place.

“Nobody else is doing anything like this anywhere in the Nordic area,” he says. “It’s unknown territory. In a couple of years, when we have shown that this is a viable business model, I think it’s going to be much more common.”

By Tim Bird, November 2018

(Photo by Harri Tarvainen/Visit Finland)