Taste the Nation: This is the company who feed the people who work at Google
Shay Kendrick, culinary director of Compass Group Ireland which last year became Ireland’s first food services company to publish a Net Zero plan to create a sustainable food system
Top contract catering company Compass Group Ireland has been navigating the route toward sustainability for some time with several unique projects centred around their own climate promise.
Last year, Compass Group Ireland became Ireland’s first food services company to publish a Net Zero plan to create a sustainable food system. The group is committed to sustainability and now has a dedicated team that is reviewing the supply chain and looking at how it can support suppliers in becoming more sustainable with a focus on regenerative agriculture, plant-based proteins, and enhancing local and seasonal sourcing.
Some of the recent changes at the group include banning air freight of fresh fruit and vegetable produce with Compass chefs focusing on reworking menus to accommodate these changes.
This means they only use local produce that is in season and available in Ireland, rather than importing from elsewhere.
“We’re very conscious of what we’re producing,” says Shay Kendrick, culinary director of Compass Group Ireland. “You’ll never see a strawberry in December in any of our Compass offices in Ireland. They’re out of season, you can’t grow them here so why should we try to air freight them in from Israel and places like that.”
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB
The origins of Compass come from a company which founded in the UK in 1941. Some may know Compass Group as the people behind the wonderful food at Google offices across the globe.
Kendrick, who has a decade with the company under his belt has been at the helm of orchestrating a famously good spread at Google. Previously, he was a regional executive chef at Google for Compass, which meant looking after the renowned Google Food programme.
Compass Group operates at 80% of all Google offices globally. As part of the Google experience, Compass ensures to avoid monotonous food choices and changes their menus regularly, preparing a wide range of cuisines including Italian, Indian, and Mediterranean.
When undertaking the role as culinary director, Kendrick brought his knowledge around plant-forward and balanced, nutritious meals.
For Compass Group, the aim is to make their food more sustainable and local. From 2015 to date, they have completed some very innovative projects in Ireland such as Project Homegrown which saw them bringing back three variants of potatoes that were previously native to Ireland - the Druid, Orla and Setanta.
These had fallen out of favour with many farmers and were thought to be on the verge of extinction.
“We’re refocusing on our menu and seeing what local produce we can produce,” says Shay. It was for this reason that they also partnered with Emerald Greens Farm, in Co Tipperary, which is Ireland’s first and largest vertical farm which sees crops grown in vertical layers.
“We’re now pushing the boundary with them as well and trying to get the product that we would have gotten air freighted from France, for instance in the winter months like mixed micro herbs and mixed micro leaf – nice little salads – that they’re actually growing all of this sort of stuff in Tipperary.”
The start of innovative projects such as Project Homegrown came in 2015 following a meeting with clients, after which they asked producers about Irish potatoes.
“That’s when they came back with the three different variants which kicked off a big change."
But it was during the pandemic that Compass Group Ireland began work on another innovative project. The Copper Pan Kitchen is a purpose-built production kitchen managed by a team of culinary professionals. It provides all-in-one catering for workplaces across the country.
It now services over 30 sites across the whole of Ireland from its base in Dublin.
“That all was a resurrection from the pandemic. It was something that we were always thinking about, but we escalated it and speed it up and kept our team members engaged. We have probably some of the best chefs in Ireland cooking at the Copper Pan Kitchen for Compass.”
Coming from a family of six boys, sustainability is something that was always in the back of Shay’s mind. He says that approximately 85% of everything they buy is from the island of Ireland since the ban on air freight which they implemented towards the latter end of last year.
“Every aspect of what we look at is can we get this local; is there somewhere within Ireland that we can get it?”
- For more information, see compassgroup.ie
