Conscious Kitchens

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From Inspector to Consultant

📃 Pre-inspection audits
🔓 Reopening post-covid
♻️ Zero waste LET'S MEET!

My name is Amy, Food Safety Consultant & Sustainability Expert with more than 10 years of industry experience internationally. I proudly present my brain child 'Conscious Kitchens', which was born from working closely with food businesses as an EHO and my passion for sustainability in the food sector. I have seen the fear that comes with inspection time for food businesses and I want to eliminate that fear. My aim is to empower and educate food businesses so you won't ever dread inspection time again. I also want to introduce a more sustainable way of thinking to the food sector, and assist those on their journey to becoming more sustainable. Whether you own a restaurant, café or takeaway business, I am here to support you and help promote a proactive approach to food inspections and food safety!

17/02/2026

“Will we need new bins, equipment, or suppliers to get started with Zero-To-Landfill?” The short answer: no.

You don’t need fancy bins, expensive gadgets, or a full supplier overhaul to begin. Zero-To-Landfill isn’t about buying your way into better habits; it’s about redesigning the systems you already have.

You don’t need to spend thousands. You just need a system that works. And that’s exactly why I designed Zero-To-Landfill the way I did, to make proper waste reduction accessible to every food business, no matter the size, space, or budget.

Curious what Zero-To-Landfill would look like in your kitchen? 🔗 Head to the link in bio to book your Discovery Call.

13/02/2026

📣 Irish growers, farmers, bakers, makers, producers and food businesses: I AM LOOKING FOR YOU!!

My Irish Food Map has become one of my favourite passion projects: a growing directory of the incredible people behind Ireland’s food culture. From small family farms to artisan producers to coastal fishers and local bakeries… these are the businesses shaping our food system every day.

📅 And I’m adding new listings for 2026.

If you grow it, make it, bake it, farm it, ferment it, pickle it, or craft it, and you want more Irish restaurants, cafés, chefs, and retailers to discover you – I’d love to feature you.

Here’s what I’m looking for:
🌱 Irish-grown produce
🧺 Irish-made food products
🌾 Regenerative or sustainable farming practices
🥖 Local bakeries, mills, fermenters, brewers
🍎 Seasonal, small-scale, or traditional producers
🔗 Any food business that strengthens Ireland’s local food chain

If that sounds like you (or if you know someone who deserves a spotlight) send me a message or tag them below this post!

12/02/2026

There’s a common misconception I hear all the time about Zero-To-Landfill:
“Oh, that’s the thing about reducing food waste, right?”
Not quite.

Food waste is a piece of the puzzle, but Zero-To-Landfill is really about something much bigger:
♻️ reducing waste in general
♻️ redesigning how materials move through your business
♻️ cutting dependency on the black bin altogether

Because here’s the truth I see in every single audit: the biggest financial impact never comes from food waste. It comes from reducing black-bin lifts and what goes into them. That’s where the real money is lost. Every time a general waste bin is collected, you’re paying for weight, contamination, volume, and usually, poor sorting.

But when a business commits to Zero-To-Landfill, something huge happens:
✔ black-bin weight drops
✔ black-bin collection frequency drops
✔ contamination charges disappear
✔ waste bills shrink
✔ staff habits improve
✔ and food waste naturally reduces as a result of better systems

It’s rarely the food waste itself that transforms the bottom line, it’s removing the black bin as the default dumping ground.

If you want to see where your biggest waste costs are really coming from, book a Discovery Call and I’ll walk you through the full breakdown.

10/02/2026

Grab-and-go fridges are one of the biggest hidden waste creators in counter-service food businesses, and most owners don’t realise how much they’re losing until they see the numbers.

These fridges look harmless, but they often create waste through:
• overstocking “just in case”
• poor rotation during busy spells
• missing or unclear date labels
• customers or staff putting items back in the wrong order
• food pushed to the back and forgotten

When a fridge becomes a display instead of a system, waste climbs fast. The fix isn’t complicated, it’s structural. A grab-and-go fridge should move stock forward, not hide it. Small changes here reduce waste, improve food safety, and protect your margins.

If your grab-and-go station needs a review, you know where to find me!

06/02/2026

Food waste in quick-service restaurants isn’t random, it follows patterns. And once you understand those patterns, you can reduce waste faster than you think.

I put together this carousel using real data from Savour Food to show where waste actually comes from, how much it costs, and the small operational tweaks that make the biggest difference 📊

Quick-service kitchens move fast, but waste reduction doesn’t need to slow you down.
With the right batching, labelling, portioning, and forecasting systems, you can protect your margins and reduce avoidable waste at the same time.

Swipe through the full breakdown 👉 and if you want help identifying where your waste is coming from and how to fix it, you can always book a Discovery Call with me and I’ll walk you through every opportunity.

05/02/2026

📣 Waste doesn’t care how big your kitchen is. But your systems do. I work with food businesses operating in everything from 3m² food trucks to 300m² restaurant kitchens, and the pattern is always the same:

The businesses with the strongest systems (clear bins, smart prep, proper labelling, right portioning, trained teams) consistently produce less waste, spend less on refuse, and stay inspection-ready every single day.

It’s never about square footage. It’s about structure. A well-designed waste system does the same job in every type of business:

✅ reduces black-bin dependency
✅ strengthens food safety
✅ improves workflow
✅ protects margins
✅ builds habits that actually last
✅ provides staff with useful tips to implement

Whether you're running a food truck, a café, a bakery, or a full-service kitchen, the goal is exactly the same: a smarter, cleaner, lower-waste operation that’s easy for your team to follow.

If you want to understand where your waste is really coming from, and how to fix it - you can always book a discovery call so we can crunch the numbers to see how much you could save.

03/02/2026

If you're running a café or takeaway in Ireland, there are two reusable-packaging schemes I think every business should at least explore: 2GoCup and Vytal.

Both reduce waste, cut long-term costs, and help you stay ahead of tightening EPR and packaging rules, but in different ways;

🌱 2GoCup
Ireland’s home-grown deposit-return scheme for reusable coffee cups (and now food containers in some locations). Customers pay a small deposit, return the cup anywhere in the network, and you eliminate a huge volume of single-use cups from your waste stream. is simple, familiar, and already widely used across Irish cafés.

🌱 Vytal Ireland
A digital reusable-packaging platform where customers “borrow” a reusable cup or container using the app, no deposit, no hassle. Items can be returned to any partner site in the network. It’s perfect for cafés, salad bars, food trucks and takeaways offering multiple types of packaging.

Reusable packaging isn’t just good for the planet. It’s good business, and it’s only becoming more relevant.

30/01/2026

It’s amazing what happens when a food business commits fully to Zero-To-Landfill: the entire waste profile transforms. This food truck is a perfect example:

Here’s what their first 12 months looked like:

📉 General waste dropped from 42% to just 11%
That’s an 89% reduction in black-bin dependency, simply by using the right streams properly.

📈 Compost increased from 25% to 59%
A huge shift that shows food waste was no longer being hidden in general waste.

📈 Recycling improved from 24% to 30%
A steady rise that becomes even more meaningful when the black bin is shrinking at the same time.

📉 Refuse costs fell by 51%
A dramatic drop achieved through better sorting, fewer collections, and a system the whole team followed.

📈 24 tonnes diverted from landfill
From a single food truck. That’s the impact of a system done right.

What I love about these results is that nothing “magical” happened. No new equipment. No major operational changes. Just clarity: clear bins, clear rules, clear habits, and a team that stuck with the system.

If you’re curious what Zero-To-Landfill could look like in your own food business, I’m always here to help you get started or crunch the numbers to see how much you could save.

29/01/2026

I’ll be honest… 😤 nothing drives me mad in a kitchen faster than unnecessary glove use. I’ve seen enough gloves to last me several lifetimes, and almost none of them were doing what people think they’re doing 🤦‍♀️

Some of my favourites (and by favourites, I mean the ones that make me quietly scream inside):

😱 Gloves used to handle pastries when clean tongs would’ve worked perfectly.
😱 Chopping onions with gloves on… then touching every fridge handle in the kitchen.
😱 Making sandwiches, but never stopping to change gloves between touching doors, emptying bins and then using the odd sweeping brush.
😱 The sight of a food handler remove a pair of gloves only to reveal another four pairs underneath! The creativity in the thought process deserved some congratulations, but food safety well and truly left the building that day.

Here’s the truth: ❗ GLOVES DON’T REPLACE HANDWASHING!! ❗
EHOs prefer clean hands + clean habits over glove theatre any day.

If your team is drowning in gloves but still struggling with food safety, the fix is simpler than you think. A few small system tweaks, the right utensils, and proper handwash setup (hint: a mixer tap) can change everything.

If you want help reviewing when gloves should and shouldn’t be used, I’m always here to support.

27/01/2026

If your café uses disposable cups, here’s the cost you’re not seeing yet.
With Ireland moving further into Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), the financial burden of waste is shifting back onto the businesses that generate it.

If your packaging creates waste, you will increasingly be expected to pay for the waste it becomes, and disposable cups are a huge contributor.

⚠️ Here’s the uncomfortable truth: even now, most disposable coffee cups in Ireland are not recycled. Even the ones labelled “recyclable” or “compostable.”

👉 Standard cups: plastic-lined → not accepted in household recycling
👉 Compostable cups: only compostable in industrial facilities, and most never get there
👉 “Better cups”: still single-use, still waste, still counted under your EPR footprint

So while the branding has changed, the outcome hasn’t.
Most cups still end up in general waste, and under EPR, that cost will increasingly be yours.

If you want to reduce waste and stay ahead of compliance and packaging fees, a reusable cup system actually works:

✅Reusables remove single-use packaging from your waste streams
✅You lower your future EPR-related costs by reducing packaging placed on the market
✅ You eliminate the confusion around “is this recyclable?” entirely

Cafés that shift to reusables aren’t just “being greener.” They’re preparing for the reality of EPR, and reducing the true cost of waste.

23/01/2026

According to Savour Food’s research on Irish quick-service restaurants, most food waste isn’t happening where business owners expect it to. The data shows:

📌 45% from prep waste
📌 32% from storage waste
📌 23% from customer plate waste

The picture is clear: the majority of waste happens behind the scenes, not at the till and not on the customer’s plate. Prep routines, storage systems, rotation habits and production planning have a far bigger impact on waste (and profitability) than most businesses realise.

And the good news? These are the areas where structured systems create the fastest, most measurable improvements. If you want to understand exactly where your waste is coming from - and how to reduce it without affecting service - a Waste Audit is the best place to start.

22/01/2026

Your menu tells a story, and for certain ingredients, that story should start on Irish farms, not on a plane. Fresh Irish produce is abundant, reliable, and available nationwide. Some staples I always recommend sourcing locally include:

🫐 Fruit: berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries), apples, pears, rhubarb
🥦 Vegetables: cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, beetroot & other root veg, potatoes, onions, leeks & scallions, pumpkins and winter squash, fresh herbs, mushrooms
🌾 Grains & cereals: oats, flour, locally grown grains (where available)
🥩 Animal products: eggs, dairy, seafood, beef, pork, chicken

These are foods that make no sense to import - not when some of the best growers in Europe are right here on our doorstep.

If you’re looking for Irish growers, farmers, bakers and makers to partner with this year, head to my . It’s your guide to the finest producers across the country.

Address

Malahide Marina Village
Malahide
K36CX99

Website

https://www.conscious-kitchens.com/

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