- The Sustainability Award 2022
Sam Buckley’s trailblazing Stockport restaurant has been a standard bearer for sustainable practices since it launched in 2016 but following the lifting of the first lockdown in 2020 it has strived to have even greener credentials.
The restaurant not only works directly with farmers and fishermen, but sources produce from its own farm to ensure it has a true understanding of what it means to work with the land. Its produce, weather patterns and sea conditions dictate the menu, meaning there is no choice offered to diners, with the aim to offer guests a balanced menu ‘that both nourishes the body and sustains our eco-system’.
When the team couldn’t gain access to the farm during the 2020 lockdown, Buckley was undeterred and created a new one on the rooftop of a multistorey car park in Stockport town centre. Called The Landing, it is a collaborative community growing space designed and built in partnership with Manchester Urban Diggers, which provides produce for the restaurant and the local community as well as promotes food sovereignty, community engagement in local food systems and increased biodiversity. The space also means that the restaurant can now compost all the cardboard it receives.
Buckley's sense of wellbeing naturally extends to his team, which does yoga once a week to lower inhibitions and heighten awareness, he says. The yoga also helps straightens the team’s backs, which is important when you're hunched over a chopping board all week.
“For me sustainability means being able to keep something going long term,” says Buckley. “In that sense every business needs to be sustainable.” Amen to that.
