Cafe trial lists carbon footprint impact on menu

A Jersey cafe chain has started listing the carbon footprint of its menu items.

The scheme, run by the government in partnership with Cafe Ube, has recipes rated on a scale of A to E, with A starting as the most carbon-friendly item descending to the least carbon-friendly at E.

The government said the recipes included in the pilot had been analysed using carbon accounting software which calculated a dish's carbon footprint across farming, processing, packaging, and transport stages.

Environment Minister Deputy Steve Luce, said he hoped the scheme would educate people on the environmental impact of their food choices and help them to make "carbon-conscious" choices.

Luce said the scheme was about "education, it's helping people choose, [it] certainly isn't forcing people to decide what they want to eat".

"What we're trying to do here is just saying look, here's two options, they're both very similar to look at, they're both very similar to taste, they're both very similar in price, but one of them actually uses less carbon to be produced than another," he said.

Luce added that he hoped the year-long trial would "carry on forever".

Cafe Ube manager Rochelle Oosthuizen said if the scheme had good traction, it was "definitely something that we would advocate other cafes getting involved in".

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