Zedible x Play It Green
In more exciting news, Zedible has joined the Play It Green community to further engage their workforce on sustainability and social impact.
Zedible is a climate tech SaaS platform to help decarbonise the food and hospitality sectors through data. The founders built Zedible from their own operators’ perspective and can give granular insights. These insights can show the impact of supplier, product, or operational changes on CO2 for any organisation which buys food & drink as part of their operation.
Play It Green is excited to be collaborating with Zedible and believes that together we can help reduce footprints and increase positive impact within hospitality.
We recently caught up with Ed Brown, one of the Co-Founders of Zedible to find out more about his company and what the future holds for it.
Please, tell us a little about Zedible.
Zedible is a carbon software platform, focusing exclusively on carbon originating from food and drink purchasing. We focus on this because simply the ‘carbon is on the plate’. Around 50-60% of the total impact of a food business’s footprint sits in ‘purchased goods and services’ (known as Scope 3, Category 1). So, this is where it’s at from an impact perspective but it’s the least understood part of the footprint.
We are different to carbon labelling and carbon accounting platforms out there as we come at the challenge of understanding what is driving CO2 in an accurate, quantifiable, and pragmatic way. We emphasised understanding materiality (down to individual SKUs purchased from wholesale suppliers) but importantly making it easy to see the impact or potential impact from a carbon and cost perspective.
Why is sustainability important to you?
Griff and I started a hospitality business called Friska, which was an ethically minded QSR (quick service restaurant) chain back in 2009. From the get-go, we wanted to make a positive impact as best we could while growing our business. We introduced zero waste to landfill and were purchasing 100% renewable energy across our sites in around 2014, so sustainability has always been at the heart of how we ‘do business’. Furthermore, we were recognised with a bunch of national and regional awards for the work we did in sustainability and particularly in how we treated the team we worked with.
Friska didn’t make it through Covid but during that time, we saw more and more commentary in the industry press around decarbonisation.
However, we thought reducing CO2 originating from food & drink purchases had next to no insight. We wanted to change this by creating a platform that made it easier for operators to understand where they are starting from. It is designed to help them to understand the impact of actions they can take. They can do this because they can see the data required to make informed decisions.
Why did you decide to collaborate with Play It Green?
We are an early-stage tech business, we only launched in January 2023. So, despite a network we have built up over 15 years in hospitality we see the importance of coming together with like-minded organisations such as Play it Green to leverage the network. This collaboration between organisations in this space is key to amplifying our collective voices and getting greater awareness of all the good stuff out there.
Importantly, speaking to the founders of Play It Green the fact that the focus is on action, not just a talking shop is very refreshing and very needed!
What does the future hold for Zedible?
We have a very simple strategy at the moment which is to get more organisations on our platform! This will increase the power of the insights we can share, increase the dataset we have, help spread the word and importantly reduce carbon in the sector.
A recent industry report from the Race to Net Zero Collaborative calculated that the sector is responsible for up to 15% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. With that in mind, we want to be part of the solution for the sector.
When the statistics show that that 34% of UK pub and restaurant goers are prepared to spend more than usual in venues with strong sustainability credentials (Survey CGA by NIQ) the economic and emotional argument is clear that taking action is the smart choice.
Quotes
Ed Brown, Co-Founder, Zedible
“The carbon is on the plate. The area where the greatest impact has the least visibility and that is what Zedible wants to change. By working with Richard and the team at Play it Green we have the opportunity to make a lot of notice, take a lot of action and help the hospitality sector be part of the solution! “.
Richard Dickson, Co-Founder, Play It Green
“The hospitality industry holds a special place in my heart, so I was looking forward to speaking with Ed. When I found out what Zedible does to measure and help reduce footprints, I was blown away.
The fact that he comes from a hospitality background makes his product so much better for his customers. Now we are collaborating, I look forward to creating so much more positive impact.
As Chris our Co-Founder says, together, we are stronger!“.
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