At 9 am, the first-floor staff restaurant at FiBL in Frick is relatively quiet. A handful of employees are having a coffee break and a sandwich and enjoying the view of the greenery outside. Catering manager Martin Künzli and his kitchen crew have already been at work for two hours and are busy prepping lunch. On the menu today: vegan mac and cheese and chicken pie with vegetables, plus the usual salad buffet. Only organic produce is used, reflecting the Institute’s core values. The 200-seater restaurant reopened after an upgrade over two years ago and has since earned a ‘Bio Cuisine’ certificate, issued by Bio Suisse since 2023 to identify culinary establishments with an organic focus. The restaurant in Frick was awarded three stars, meaning that 90 per cent of the ingredients it uses are organic. ‘In reality, we’re completely organic here,’ points out Künzli, who has run the staff restaurant since it reopened. The only exceptions are the odd spice and vegetables that are sourced from the Research Institute’s cultivation trials and are not, therefore, certified.
Less meat, more plant-based protein
FiBL feels that canteens have a central role to play in the transition to more sustainable, more climate-friendly food habits. The fact that they bulk-buy ingredients gives canteens interesting leverage to promote the production of more environmentally friendly food, a Research Institute factsheet records. The factsheet includes a range of different steps that restaurateurs can take to make their catering operations more sustainable. Examples include using fewer foods of animal origin: according to FiBL calculations, substituting meat with plant-based sources of protein can reduce the overall environmental footprint of buying food by around a quarter. In the Institute’s own staff restaurant, meat dishes currently make up around 30 per cent of the menu. For environmental reasons and to keep costs down (organic meat is considerably more expensive than conventionally farmed meat), the aim is not to exceed this level. The additional expense of organic meat can be offset by offering a high proportion of vegan and vegetarian dishes. At the FiBL restaurant in Frick, which is open to the public, a meat-based lunch costs 16 francs while a vegetarian or vegan option costs 12 francs.
Avoiding food waste is also a key factor when it comes to improving the operation’s environmental footprint – although, according to Künzli, the impact of the restaurant business here is relatively low: ‘Most food waste occurs during production and in the trade of intermediate goods.’ Nevertheless, he has introduced various measures to minimise the amount of food that is thrown away in his kitchen. The FiBL restaurant, for example, serves relatively small portions and allows customers to help themselves to seconds if they want. The restaurant aims to follow the ‘leaf to root’ approach and use as much of the vegetable as possible. ‘We use fennel leaves to make pesto, and we process whole beetroot, including the skin, to make hummus,’ the restaurant manager explains. Working with ingredients that are in season is also, of course, key: tomatoes are only available here in summer.
No ready-made ingredients
One important difference between this and a conventional restaurant is that the organic kitchen does not use ready-made or semi-prepared ingredients, as these are rarely organic. As Künzli points out, ‘We always cook from fresh.’ That means more work for the kitchen staff, because they have to start by preparing and chopping the carrots and thoroughly washing the potatoes. Künzli, who is a vegan himself, feels that creativity is both the biggest challenge and the most rewarding aspect of his work. ‘Nowadays, meat-free cooking offers a whole range of options to try something new.’ Trained as a chef and in the hotel business, he enjoys finding inspiration on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube and doesn’t feel at all constrained by the strict organic certification. ‘There’s very little nowadays that isn’t available in an organic version.’
FiBL – a foundation designed to serve organic farming
The private ‘Swiss Foundation for the Promotion of Organic Farming’ was founded on 1 February 1973. One year later, the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) opened. Today, FiBL Switzerland has a workforce of around 300, and the FiBL Group, based in five locations across Europe, has over 400 employees. FiBL is one of the world’s leading research institutes in all aspects of organic agriculture, including soil management, crop cultivation, animal welfare and organic food processing. The Institute is known for closely combining research with consultation and practice. FiBL Switzerland is also involved in numerous international research, consultation and training projects and in development cooperation.