Good afternoon All,
The sun is shining (ish), half term and the Jubilee celebrations are here / around the corner, and we have developed a new infographic to show the impact the Dorset Sustainable Palm Oil Community (DSPOC) is having. Check it out!
With another 2 champions signing up this month, we now have 28 champions and 11 ambassadors in 11 towns in Dorset and 6 villages. We cover several suburbs of BCP and have businesses across the entire county from east to west, north to south. We still need more hospitality businesses and workplaces with more than 20 people before we can call ourselves the world’s first sustainable palm oil county, so please get in touch if you are interested in finding out more.
So what has happened this month in DSPOC?
- We are so delighted to announce that Bridport is going to try and become a Sustainable Palm Oil Town in its own right! When Ian Bark first became Mayor in 2020, he set the challenge of Bridport becoming a single use Plastic Free Community, which they achieved in 2021. In his third term, Mayor Bark has decided that the challenge for this year will be for Bridport to try and become a Sustainable Palm Oil Town as part of our drive to make Dorset the first county in the world to become a sustainable palm oil community. We will be supporting Mayor Bark and his team all the way and will work together to get the message out to as many organisations and businesses as possible that sustainable palm oil is a solution to protecting and restoring nature.
Watch this space as I hope to be announcing another community within Dorset that wants to be its own sustainable palm oil town soon!
- The Escoffier Restaurant, the fine dining restaurant run by catering and hospitality students at the Bournemouth and Poole College has joined DSPOC. We are so pleased to have you on board, as you will be teaching all your students to check their food supply chains and audit them for conventional palm oil.
- Additionally, our third fish and chip shop has joined up too! Jacksons Fish and Chips in Weymouth has pledged to only use 100% sustainable palm oil – fantastic!
- This month, several of our pledged champions became fully fledged champions, which means that they have completed everything we asked them to do. Bournemouth University is one of them – they have put a policy on their website (scroll down) and have worked with their suppliers to ensure that where palm oil is present in their on-site food, it will be sourced from accredited sustainable sources.
- Local Food Links, school food provider to over 50 Dorset schools is another one of our brilliant fully-fledged champions. Again, scroll down to see their commitment and policy for SPO on their website.
- YMCA Bournemouth have been amazing, and within just a short period of time, checked with their suppliers and ensured that all food products that they purchase now only contain sustainable rather than conventional palm oil AND have put their commitment on the front page of their website (scroll to bottom). Thank you to YMCA and indeed all of our champions – we couldn’t do this without you.
- Lastly, Frome Valley First School pledged to use only sustainable palm oil products in any food they produce with their students in cooking lessons. Additionally, the eco-committee wrote to their PTFA to ask them to support them by making sure any future food products only contain sustainable palm oil. They highlighted that this should include food donations such as cakes, and even Easter eggs. The eco-committee also asked the PTFA to highlight this to parents when asking for donations for raffles and prizes, and to ensure that any biscuits or items used when serving tea and coffees would also need to have sustainable palm oil too. They put the pledge on the website, and even put it in their video about Eco-Schools highlights for the year! Just phenomenal.
- One of our champions, Lucy from Coconut and Cotton went above and beyond the call of duty and stood in for me at the “Choosing our Future” event at Shaftesbury School, organised by Planet Shaftesbury. Lucy – thank you so much. The Sustainability in Hospitality event hosted by Barclays Eagle Labs at the Green House Hotel in Bournemouth was a great afternoon and saw myself, Andy Lennox of Fired Up Hospitality and James Fowler of Terroir Tapas talk about various aspects of sustainability.
- Leon Elliott, a former colleague who helped kick start the initiative, has agreed to be a DSPOC Ambassador. Good to have you involved still Leon!
Number of the month: 3 million +.This is the number of smallholder farmers globally who grow oil palm alongside subsistence crops, in less than 50 hectares, where the family provides the majority of labour and the farm provides the principal source of income. In Indonesia and Malaysia alone, they are responsible for 40% of palm oil production.
If you have any questions about joining our campaign and becoming a Champion or an Ambassador, please email me. Alternatively, if you know of anyone who might be interested in finding out more about the campaign to become the world’s first sustainable palm oil county, please pass on this newsletter to them, or suggest that they contact us (contact details below).
Our last Virtual Coffee Morning was a great success so please join us for our next coffee and chat on Monday, 27th June at 3pm. If you want to know how to ensure your palm oil is sustainable, come and join us for an informal chat. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7973781249 No need to register – just drop in! Don’t worry if you can’t make it as we will do a different day and time next time, to try and make it as accessible to everyone as possible.
If you do not want to receive the monthly newsletters any more, please email me with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
Best regards
Lucy
Operations Director of Efeca
Dorset Sustainable Palm Oil Community
T: 01305 261050
W: https://www.efeca.com/our-work/dorset-sustainable-community/
