Government must reward sustainable businesses, says top gastropub operator

Speaking at the Restaurant Show last week, Andrew Fishwick, who along with wife and business partner Mary Jane owns the Truscott Arms, Maida Vale, said: “[Sustainability] needs to be at the very centre of everyone’s business plan.

Penalised​

“Unfortunately as an economy – and an ecology – [operators] are still penalised for making sustainable decisions. [The government] should reward sustainable acts."

Fishwick said he believed businesses should receive a rebate on business rates for recycling rather than “being penalised and made to suffer on your bottom line for it".

He added that he had found it difficult and expensive to have his pub’s food waste collected and recycled, having to pay an external company to take care of it sustainably.

Benchmark​

Sustainability was high on the agenda at the Restaurant Show. Fishwick sat on a panel to discuss how pubs and restaurants can turn ethical values into more covers and profits alongside food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart, Giles Gibbons of the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) and chef Arthur Potts Dawson.

“[At the Truscott Arms] we’ve gone about incorporating sustainability as a benchmark by which we make any decision,” said Fishwick.

“The core of any sustainability has to be making the business sustainable – it’s all very well me doing lovely things and using eco products and free range meat and going bust in three months  - my first responsibility is to make the business sustainable and with that comes hard decisions. “

The Truscott Arms was named Sustainable Pub of the Year at the SRA's Sustainable Restaurant Awards in February.

Contemporary​

The Fishwicks recently opened their second venture​, the Truscott Cellar, in Belsize Park in September.

The site is the couple’s contemporary take on the wine bar/restaurant format and serves a selection of small “British tapas” style dishes created by Truscott Arms head chef Aidan McGee.

The Truscott Arms came tenth in 2015’s Top 50 Gastropubs. You can see a gallery of 2015's top ten gastropubs here​.