The beautiful Bee Shack Cafe

Here in the middle of five acres of farmland in the idyllic Dorset countryside, we at Honeybuns have embedded a strong environmental ethic into our daily work.

Joining 10:10 helped us to think about our environmental impact in more detail and encouraged us to build carbon-cutting initiatives into our five year business plan. We encouraged our team to contribute ‘BeeGreen’ ideas with a monthly prize for the best. One of the most successful so far was to move from production paperwork to electronic forms, which dramatically reduced our paper usage. 

Joining 10:10 helped us to think about our environmental impact in more detail and encouraged us to build carbon-cutting initiatives into our five year business plan.

Efficient growth

We are in a period of quite rapid growth. In the period Jan – March 2010 we grew 50% compared to the same quarter in the previous year. Something we work incredibly hard on is producing products as efficiently as possible. We measure, monitor and review progress weekly, and because of our improved efficiency we achieved this level of growth without proportionately increasing our power usage. Our carbon intensity has fallen by 10.4% compared with our baseline year.

Closing the loop

We currently recycle all of our cardboard, paper, glass & metal. The cardboard is shredded and returned to us to use as horse and chicken bedding, which in turn is rotted down on the dung heap and then used to fertilise the team vegetable plot. We also compost all compostable waste. It’s a satisfying feeling to know all the paper towels we use eventually help to grow fruit and vegetables. On top of this, we harvest rain water in old barrel water butts around the farm for watering our garden & animals.

We have a ‘make do and mend’ motto at Honeybuns. Used ingredient cartons become ingredient storage bins and online shop packages are sent out in used cardboard boxes. In the Bee Shack Café old coffee sacks have been made into cushions and all furniture comes from the local recycling centre.

Smart storage

Our storage space has been increased and insulated. This means we have fewer deliveries, reduced traffic to the site and less need for chillers and freezers. Those we do have are being upgraded to make them more energy efficient.

Plans for the future include an energy transfer system using the heat from the oven to heat our production areas, improved insulation, solar panels and a small wind turbine to generate power for our café and office.