Zero Waste Dinner

Sara Flaksbard

The theme of this VIP private dinner was "Zero - where sustainability tastes better". A dinner hosted by the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney with their Principal Partner HSBC Bank Australia. One of Australia's leading sustainability chef's - Matt Stone was engaged to curate the menu. Elevating the environmentally themed event, The Calyx’s moveable floral displays and the spectacular green wall made up of over 18,000 plants immersed the guests. An organic style runner featured as the table centrepiece and included cabbages, pumpkins and radishes, which were donated to OzHarvest, along with any leftover prepared food after the event.

Working in collaboration with Matt Stone, Laissez-faire Catering brought Matt's sustainably sourced menu to the table, highlighting some of the best produce Australia has to offer. Menu highlights included: Fried akoya oysters: a native oyster that reinvigorates the fisheries industry in Western Australia, Cricket balls: made with crickets, a sustainable protein booster, Steamed grouper with greens and bone broth: sourced from Rocky Point Aquaculture, a sustainable fish farm in south Queensland and Gin and orange parfait with cultured butter: the whole fruit of the orange was used to match the zero-waste theme.

The event helped HSBC celebrate the work its clients are doing in the transition to net zero. At this event, 16kg of produce was donated to OzHarvest and 2.5kg of waste was composted. The whole event was 99 per cent zero food waste. The produce we sourced was requested to be organic or biodynamic with no single use plastic items being used (not even cling wrap). Any unused produce was recycled and used in the cooking process or composted to grow more ingredients. Even the napkins were washable velvet to reduce the paper waste.