Environmental Sustainability
Red Dragon Inn is a certified organic drinks processor based in Lismore
certified organic by NASAA No P2567.
All inputs are sourced as locally as possible.
This improves economic viability and allows better future planning for local certified organic farms; not only by standard purchases and contracts but by also providing a market for seasonal gluts of produce for secondary processing.
Red Dragon Inn encourages the switch for regional agriculture to certified organic farming with its attendant land stewardship responsibilities who already adhere to principles of agricultural, social, and environmental sustainability.
Red Dragon Inn's delivery van runs on 100% natural gas, to reduce substantially exhaust pollutants and reduce reliance on oil imports.
Red Dragon Inn Will at all times minimise packaging and use recycled material wherever possible.
In the case of the 'live' Red Dragon Inn organic ginger beer, plastic bottles have to be used for safety. It could be in glass only if pasteurised. It is a trade off between the nutritional and energetic advantages of drinking a non processed ,living, fermented beverage product and the advantages of using glass over plastic but consuming a 'dead', more processed and heat treated drink like all other fizzy soft drinks. If you prefer the latter please let us know.
All organic waste at the Red Dragon Inn kitchen is collected for Lismore's state of the art worm farm. Red Dragon Inn acts wherever possible to reduce road freight 'travel or food miles' inherent in its ingredients, packaging etc thereby reducing fuel requirements, road upgrade requirements, vehicle pollution and all attendant environmental degradation.
'TRAVEL MILES' or 'FOOD MILES'
Red Dragon Inn believes action to dramatically reduce transport requirements 'food miles' for all inputs - by using the most local possible inputs - and to focus on regional sales goes a long way to reducing negative environmental and social consequences of the food and drinks we buy.
Food miles are the total distance food travels from the farm to the consumer.
Department of Environment, Food and Regional Affairs (DEFRA) in the UK has recently published a report on the validity of food miles as an indicator of sustainable development in which it states that food transport accounts for 25% of all heavy goods vehicles kilometres in UK.
Within Australia with our highly centralised production and distribution centres in state capital cities and large geographical supply areas. I would think our % of mega trucks carrying food would be much higher.
WHAT TO DO
- Buy local products at farmers markets and roadside stalls
- Support local businesses supporting regional sustainability
- Buy locally made products
- Look where ingredients came from and where food was canned, bottled or frozen
- Try a locavore diet, eating only food and beverages produced within 160k of you.
Local food (also regional food or food patriotism) or the local food movement is a "collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular place" and is considered to be a part of the broader sustainability movement. It is part of the concept of local purchasing and local economies, a preference to buy locally produced goods and services. Those who prefer to eat locally grown/produced food sometimes call themselves locavores or localvores.
