Food accounts for roughly one third of the carbon footprint of the average person in the UK and that’s mostly from transport, petrochemicals used by farmers and heating for greenhouses.

Local, organic food avoids most of these carbon emissions so we can actually reduce our personal contribution to climate change more easily by changing what we eat, rather than by changing the way we travel and use energy at home.

The Castle Café buys several tonnes of food every year and we’ve started to make changes to what we buy to ensure our food selection is more sustainable.

Of course the most sustainable way of getting food is to grow it organically in your own garden. So that’s what we're doing here! We have about an acre of garden at The Castle, which isn't enough space to grow all the food to supply the Café year round, but it does produce a significant proportion of it. Most of the year you will find fresh, garden grown salad leaves, herbal tea blends and at various times during the season, an assortment of fruit and vegetables.

We have won a number of awards for our efforts to make the Castle more sustinable, this includes:

• Sustainable City Awards – Winner in Sustainable Food Category (2012)
• Capital Growth – Grow For Gold, Inspiring Gardens Category (Second Place 2012)
• Hackney in Bloom – Gold Prize in Best Food Growing (Professional) & Best Newcomer Award (2013)
• Sport and Recreation Alliance’s - Green Thinking Award  (2014)