The Wanderlust Chefs implement reuse solutions

Small rural communities make important contributions to Australia’s economy, culture and environment. Located in Wonthaggi, the Wanderlust Chefs offer ready to eat meals which can be either picked up in store or delivered at home.

Cassandra at The Wanderlust Chefs is passionate about finding waste solutions for her business and community as well as balancing customer needs. Cassandra is not new to implementing reuse solutions. Whilst working at a café in 2007, Cassandra set up a mug library where people would come for their morning coffee and after a morning walk could return their mug so it could be washed and reused.

A few years ago, some customers started to bring their own containers to collect their meals at The Wanderlust Chefs. Cassandra welcomed this and encouraged other customers to do the same. This kick-started a community discussion on waste, and they agreed that switching to other single-use alternatives such as paper-based or bioplastic containers was not enough. There were many questions around recycling and compost-ability of these items.

Customer response

Cassandra communicated with her customers and provided guidance on bringing the clean containers and how the BYO container systems would work. Customers can choose to store their BYO containers at The Wanderlust Chefs and after meals are prepared, Cassandra and the team will have them ready for collection or delivery. Customers also have the option of bringing their containers and having meals served to them over the counter.

This set up was easy to follow and soon, the majority of customers joined the BYO container movement and The Wanderlust Chefs received very positive responses. Now The Wanderlust Chefs is running out of room to store customers’ containers. Many customers have bought multiple containers and keep them in rotation.

The impact

The Wanderlust Chefs now serve around 80 meals a day and divert more than 1,500 containers every month from going into the landfill.

What’s next?

The Wanderlust Chefs are continuously looking for more opportunities to make their business more sustainable and engage their community to embrace sustainability.