atiyah offers Australia's first zero carbon catering

atiyah is a catering company offering Lebanese and Middle Eastern food. Co-founder Ben Armstrong is passionate about implementing sustainability in every aspect of the catering business – from using an electric delivery van, sourcing ethical and local farm suppliers, to achieving certification as a carbon-neutral kitchen.

Ben hoped to inspire other restaurant and takeaway food businesses to make the shift away from single-use plastics and build a sustainable food industry future both in Australia and globally.

To minimise the plastic waste from their supply chains, they conducted a plastic audit, collecting all plastic packaging for a month, separating items by supplier. When they understood where each type of plastic waste was coming from, they contacted each supplier to determine what solutions were available.

What it means for the business

atiyah worked with their suppliers to minimise plastic waste and implemented the following changes:

• Cheese, olives and dips and other items are now supplied in reusable buckets.
• Replacing two-litre juice containers with 20-litre reusable containers.
• Using commercially compostable vacuum bags for meat and vegetable products.

atiyah now only use reusable or compostable products from biopak to serve customers, including reusable aluminium water bottle.

All kitchen and customer food waste and compostable packaging are composted and turned into nutritious compost within 48 hours. They use reusable, foldable crates to store groceries, and have removed single-use plastic bags entirely from its operation.

What it means for the customer

atiyah is the first restaurant to offer a carbon neutral certified menu to its customers.

The impact

An external waste audit and assessment revealed that atiyah has removed 150 kilograms of plastic waste from its operations every year.

What's next

atiyah will maintain its carbon neutral certified status with Climate Active and seek opportunities to influence hospitality businesses with their story.

For more information visit atiyah.