Here at EventCity, we place sustainability at the heart of everything we do. As part of our ongoing efforts to contribute to a more sustainable future we ensure that, wherever possible, all our ingredients are locally sourced. Our Food & Beverage team - The Kitchen, pride themselves on creating strong relationships with regional, artisanal and sustainable suppliers to source high-quality ingredients for your events. We believe that knowing where your food and drink has come from is just as important as how it tastes.

As today (1st October) is International Coffee Day, we thought what better time to introduce you to our sustainable coffee supplier, Broderick’s. A family run company with three generations in the business, Broderick’s offer a large variety of coffee, tea, chocolate drinks, fruit juices and confectionary. Celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, the company holds both Fair Trade and Rain Forest Alliance certificates.

With long-established ethical trading principles, Broderick’s were one of the first companies in the UK to offer ethically endorsed products, back in the 1990’s. They were audited by LRQA in 1998 and received the ISO 14001 accreditation for environmental management, an achievement they have held for every year since the company transitioned to the ISO14001:2015 standard in February 2018.

Here’s just a few things that Broderick’s do to ensure they remain as sustainable and ethical as possible:

• Offer all customers a 100% recyclable paper cup which can be recycled with cardboard and paper, without any special treatment or process.
• Reduce landfill – 11.5 tonnes of spent coffee ground waste has been sent to ‘bio-bean’, the world’s largest recycler of coffee grounds to transform spent coffee grounds into value at an industrial scale and give new life to a material previously considered waste.
• Reduce Co2 emissions by introducing hybrid and electric vehicles into the company’s fleet.

Continuously adopting new practices to reduce plastic waste to landfill, Broderick’s has recently sourced a machine that will accept the return of plastic bottles – Reverse Vending. “On the basis of Recycle and Reward, the machine accepts used, empty plastic bottles and returns a credit to the user via the Broderick’s app, encouraging customers to recycle. The credit is then available to spend in our machines”, Lisa Weilding, Business Development Manager at Broderick’s, explains.

Broderick’s always ensure that they protect the environment and prevent pollution, for example by encouraging their clients to minimise air emissions and offer a selection of energy efficient machines, including refrigerant free.

Lisa adds: “Broderick’s recognises its duty to comply with the EPA and has systems in place to ensure that waste management is controlled. For instance, we recover packaging waste ready for recycling and submit packaging waste reports to compliance scheme.”

Aligned with our vision to support our local community, Broderick’s also place charity at their core. Here are some great examples of their recent charitable initiatives:

• They have dedicated 115,000 vending cups to “Manchester Bee” and have sent over £300 worth of stock to homeless staff and volunteers in Manchester.
• Over the last year, they have donated almost £15,000 into total to charities such as Ronald McDonald House (Accommodation for Parents of Sick Children) and Beanstalk and raised a total of £824 for Macmillan Cancer Support and Children in Need.
• This year, they introduced a new initiative to give employees one day off per year to spend volunteering, equating to 156 days per year of free volunteering to local charities.

We’re proud to be associated with Broderick’s, just one of the fantastic sustainable suppliers we work with to ensure that EventCity’s principles are upheld. Like us, they are committed to a cleaner, safer environment and never cease to adopt new initiatives to support the community and beyond.

For more information about our in-house corporate catering, visit The Kitchen.