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                    Food and drinks

                    Icon depicting an apple, lunchbox and drink bottle
                    Most events provide catering in one form or another. It might be as simple as providing drinking stations or you might be hosting a fully catered event, such as a sit-down dinner.

                    ​Food and beverage choices can contribute the biggest environmental impact of an event.

                    Did you know?

                    Every year, 3.3 million tons of food waste is produced, and 2.6 million of that is from households. This is enough to fill the MCG six times.

                    Check out more interesting facts about waste.

                    Australia produces enough food each year to feed around 60 million people – over twice our population – yet many Australians struggle to put food on the table. (Source: War on Waste statistics)

                    Making some small changes to the way you cater at your event can have a big impact on the environment and the people in our community.

                    Infographic depicting five tips for food and drinks at events. See 'Top five tips' below for full details.  

                    Top five tips

                    1. Provide staff with reusable bottles (or ask them to bring their own) and provide or sell reusable bottles or cups to your attendees for use across your event. 
                    2. Provide at least 50 per cent vegetarian and vegan options, and where possible choose chicken instead of beef to cut down on carbon emissions. 
                    3. Ask caterers to avoid single use waste products or products with excessive packaging (for example, swap single-serve sauce packets for a condiment station). 
                    4. Prioritise catering that uses fair trade, local, seasonal, carbon neutral and any other sustainable food options. 
                    5. Engage a social enterprise to do your catering.

                    You could also:

                    1. Provide drinking fountains so people don’t need to buy bottled water. Check out where drinking fountains are located across the City of Melbourne. 
                    2. Provide recycling and organic waste collection bins. 
                    3. Reward attendees for bringing their reusable cups, bags and bottles with discounts or opportunities to enter competitions via social media. 
                    4. Add extra cost to single use items to encourage reusable items. For example, make coffees and alcoholic beverages 50 cents extra in takeaway cups. 
                    5. Partner with an organisation that collects leftover food and redistributes it to people in need or compost / send your food waste to a worm farm.

                    See also: Product purchasing, Waste management

                    Download the infographic

                    Planning template

                    To help you plan for responsible catering at your event, we’ve created a template:

                    Sustainable events: Food and drinks planning template

                    More information

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