GridDuck conducts an exclusive interview with Domini Hogg, Founder of Tried and Supplied. We talk technology, supply chains and saving food waste.

This week, we sit down with Domini Hogg, the founder of Tried and Supplied, a company helping businesses with sustainable sourcing and creating a healthier, local supply chain through a range of services. In our discussion, Domini provides her top advice for hospitality managers, explains how to utilise technology in order to become more sustainable and unpacks the most profound issues faced by Britain’s food supply chain today. 

Leah Barron Stevens: Hi Domini, thanks so much for taking the time today. 

Domini Hogg: Hi Leah. No problem. 

LBS: I've already written an article on sustainability tips for hospitality managers in relation to energy usage, but Tried and Supplied is focused on sustainable food and drink sourcing. What are your top tips for hospitality businesses wanting to establish a more sustainable supply chain?

DH: I think it’s always a good idea to start by taking stock and assessing what you are currently ordering and in what quantities. The next step is to look at what your local area/s produce well and what your guests would likely enjoy. If you don’t have the time or are unsure where to start, we can help point you in the right direction. It’s also important to build in flexibility to your menu so you can easily adapt for seasonal produce and varying natural conditions that result in either shortages or surpluses of particular ingredients. You might consider a specials board or using phrases like “with seasonal vegetables” or “fresh catch of the day” on the menu to encourage guests to choose seasonal produce they might not otherwise recognise or think they like. You also want to keep a close eye on what you’re throwing away and think about whether you can better design your menu to make the most out of the ingredients you’re buying, for example by making a soup of the day with cauliflower leaves if you’re serving cauliflower florets elsewhere on the menu. 

LBS: Before we get too engrossed in the discussion, could you please explain what Tried & Supplied does and what kind of people you are trying to help for anyone that doesn't know?

DH: Sure. Tried & Supplied offers a technology solution that makes it easy for hospitality and food retail businesses to source local, sustainable food and drink. We take away the boring administrative work around finding new suppliers, setting them up for purchasing and gathering information from them on sustainability, nutrition and allergens. We then store this data in a digital format both suppliers and buyers can access and even share with end-consumers to demonstrate supply chain transparency. We also make ordering across multiple suppliers as easy as one product list, one basket total, and one click of a button. 

LBS: What would you say is the greatest challenge for hospitality businesses sourcing food sustainably today?

DH: I would say data is a big one. What we eat is becoming much more regulated and the data to comply with these regulations much more complex now that it covers nutrition and sustainability as well as food safety. Calories on the menu and the Green Claims Code are both new regulations coming into force this year. Meanwhile calculating the carbon footprint of supply chains for achieving Net Zero targets requires specialist companies such as Foodsteps and My Emissions to ensure credibility. Managing this large volume of data efficiently while reducing the amount of manual input that's required is a key challenge. 

LBS: I can see that. Building consumer trust is key and they are very suspicious of greenwashing. The Green Claims Code requirement to substantiate sustainability claims will provide a framework for establishing this trust. Is Tried & Supplied able to help businesses substantiate their claims? Do you focus primarily on reducing food miles? Why is this important? 

DH: Absolutely. Tried & Supplied is all about providing businesses with the information they need to understand the sustainability of their suppliers and demonstrate this clearly to customers. We don’t calculate carbon footprint ourselves, but we do work with partners who do and provide them with the data to calculate this more efficiently. Reducing food miles is an important aspect of what we do, but sustainability is a multifaceted challenge and food miles are by no means our only consideration when it comes to sustainable sourcing. The way food is produced is also important and can mean sourcing further afield is more sustainable. Our general premise, however, is that shortening the supply chain doesn’t just reduce food miles, but also increases supply chain transparency and accountability, and encourages farms to grow a more diverse range of crops. A long international supply chain encourages growers to specialise in monocultures and makes it easy for bad practices to be hidden through multiple layers of distribution.

LBS: GridDuck and Tried & Supplied are both technology companies. How do you see technology accelerating progress towards sustainability? 

DH: Nature is a connected ecosystem so we need to be solving sustainability challenges in a connected way. One of the greatest human inventions of the last century was the internet. Already we have seen how the internet has enabled humans to easily connect with complete strangers on opposite sides of the world and social media platforms have sprung up to facilitate this communication. Similarly consumer marketplaces are enabling small businesses to connect with each other and operate more efficiently. What we haven’t yet done at any great scale is utilise the power of this hyperconnectivity to solve sustainable challenges, but Tried & Supplied has already started doing this for the food system. We utilise supply chain data as a shared resource to enable all businesses to save time and make better decisions. Once a supplier is onboarded onto our system with their supply chain data, this data is available to all our customers in a way that makes it easy for them to source, purchase and promote sustainable options. Suppliers don’t have to fill in separate forms for each and every customer who asks them for their information.

LBS: That's really interesting because I was reading the analogy you make on your website of a supply chain functioning in the same way that plants communicate, the Wood Wide Web! It’s a really interesting way of thinking about things because obviously the ecosystems from which we get our food are all interconnected, but you don't often think about connectivity in the collective effort of harvesting those resources. What do you consider to be the one of the greatest challenges in reducing food miles, not just for businesses, but in homes as well?

DH:  Yes, you’re right about the Wood Wide Web. I think nature offers the best solutions for achieving sustainability so we like to draw our inspiration from nature where we can. In terms of challenges for reducing food miles I think the biggest is logistics. We have had a global supply chain for many decades now and the infrastructure for food distribution is designed to support global supply chains with large monocultural harvests of produce that travel long distances. This infrastructure is really hard to reverse because we have to first recreate the geographical density of demand to make localised distribution cost-effective and encourage farmers to take the risk to diversify. It's a little bit “chicken and egg.” 

Consumers are well positioned to drive local demand because it's often easier to make the decision as an individual to pay a little extra to support the local producers than it is necessarily as a business, where you've got multiple people to get on board and you've got to demonstrate the impact to the bottom line, etc. Sustainable options aren’t necessarily more expensive, however. We’ve saved one of our customers 24% on herbs and spices by switching them to organic. Being able to promote a sustainable message also helps attract customers, employees and investors, making an indirect, but significant contribution to the bottom line.

LBS: What's the most surprising thing you've learned about the food and drink industry since starting Tried & Supplied?

DH: I was surprised by just how complex it is! I came from a tea background and the company I was working for had 120 different types of tea so I thought that was complex enough, but I hadn’t focused on how each product in the food supply chain has different ways that it can or can't travel, and each one has different types of certifications that are relevant. For example, fruit and vegetables will normally go via wholesale markets and distributors, while ice cream is frequently delivered by the produce and meat will go via butchers. Every single type of produce has a different way of getting to market and different costs and taxes attached to it. All of these are important factors when creating a platform like Tried & Supplied to facilitate local, sustainable supply chains.

LBS: What do you consider to be Tried and Supplied’s greatest achievement so far?

DH: I think our greatest achievement has been establishing restaurants with a more sustainable supply chain. Knowing that we have improved the welfare of animals, for example, by finding a cost-effective source of free range chicken wings for one customer in the Midlands from a butcher 12 miles away, means we have ensured a free range lifestyle for approximately 200 birds a month and significantly reduced the food miles compared to a similarly priced alternative from abroad. 

LBS: Finally, what are your plans for the future of Tried and Supplied?

DH: We’re actively looking at product integrations and partnerships to make our customers’ lives easier across invoice payments, carbon footprint calculation, and recipe management. We want to make sustainability so easy and cost-effective that it becomes a no brainer for hospitality and food retail businesses.

We would like to thank Domini for her time and insights. To learn more about Tried and Supplied, head to www.triedandsupplied.com. If you’d like to learn more about how GridDuck can help your business become more sustainable, then please arrange a 15 minute chat with Miles here.