that recently moved here from London with the aim of becoming entirely self-sufficient.

The hospitality industry can be incredibly wasteful. But like Native, a growing number

of restaurants are moving toward a zero-waste policy of sustainability.

Imogen Davis is the restaurant's co-founder.

Why did you pick Osea Island?

The big eventual dream was that we always had a restaurant system that was really closed

loop and self-sufficient as possible.

And you used the term closed loop. Can you tell me a little bit what that means?

It means that we have to grow as much as possible. Keep the miles that any food has travelled

to a minimum. Be as zero waste as we absolutely possibly can. It's very much a case of trying

to live off of the land, but in harmony with the land.

Imogen's taking me to go foraging for the ingredients needed for today's menu.

Any seaweed that you do gather, like this sea lettuce, which is going to be on the menu….

Guests here are treated to a seasonal dining experience.

It's just the most beautiful colour.

The menu is dictated by what has been freshly gathered from the Island's wild larder.

Do you think that kind of chains and bigger restaurants in London and elsewhere in the

world can just follow this model?

It's about responding to the environment around you. Chains can do that. Absolutely. They

just need to, I guess, not be just driven by that one purpose of money.

Native currently imports some of its ingredients from sustainable suppliers but aims to be

entirely self-sufficient within five years.

Why do you think that what you're doing here and the kind of philosophy behind Native is

kind of important for the hospitality industry?

We have to stop putting stress on the food chain, dictating to the land. What we want,

we have to let the land to dictate to us pretty much. You know, you have one cow, you have

to learn how to use every single part and I think that's really important to the agriculture

industry, as well as to the hospitality industry.

Having helped gather some of its contents, I'd love to stay for the meal the chefs

are preparing.

But I've got a boat to catch, and another restaurant to visit.

According to the UK government, the hospitality industry here throws away about £1.5bn worth

of food each year.

I've come to East London, where you'll find zero-waste restaurant Silo.

The idea for Silo started with a simple concept: could a restaurant operate without a single

bin?

Head chef and founder Douglas McMaster says that any zero-waste restaurant needs to use

a three-pillar approach: direct trade with suppliers, whole food preparation and composting.

Direct trade's the most important, because when you deal directly with where food and

materials come from, there is no packaging. Everything that comes into this space into

this restaurant is reusable as a material or natural, including food. The things that

we don't eat then is composted and then it goes back into the system.

While some of these processes may be a little unconventional, Douglas says Silo's food

costs are very low.

So do you think, that actually, most restaurants are just missing a trick here?

Absolutely. You know, we do spend more on people, but less on food, less on ingredients.

At Silo, even the furniture and fittings are created from natural products, or materials

that would normally have gone to waste.

These tables, for example, are made from recycled plastic and sustainably sourced wood.

Plates are made from recycled plastic bags.

So, it looks a bit like mother of pearl, like galvanized steel, but this is from the medical

food packaging industry.

And when you say waste, where would that normally be going?

Most would have gone to landfill or in some cases recycling.

Douglas was inspired by food-upcycling methods popularly used in Asian countries, like Japan,

and thanks to a dish of cuttlefish in fermented sauce, I'm about to find out that zero waste

doesn't mean compromised taste.

It's all about this sauce here.

That is delicious.

So the fermentation not only prevents waste, fermenting all of the things that would become

waste, we ferment into these liquids and then they kind of close this loop, but then deliver

like the most exquisite flavour that is so unique and like nowhere else.

The scale with which food is being wasted across the industry is unsustainable, but

reducing waste also makes business sense.

According to a recent World Resources Institute study across 12 countries, for every dollar

invested in food waste reduction, restaurants can realize approximately $8 of cost savings,

and maybe that'll be the strongest incentive to make other restaurants consider a zero-waste

approach. END

Subs SOCIAL ZERO WASTE The hospitality industry can be incredibly

wasteful. But a growing number of restaurants are moving toward a closed loop and zero waste

policy of sustainability.

So, do you think most restaurants are just missing a trick here?

Absolutely. You know, we do spend more on people, but less on food, less on ingredients.