Sustainable Practices at The Cookery

The Cookery’s Environmental Philosophy

Carol and Diana (Carol’s sister and General Manager at The Cookery) grew up on a farm that practiced sustainable farming – the farm supported their eleven person family while not creating waste or harming the environment. If an item could no longer be used for its original purpose, it was not thrown away, it was reused in some fashion. Table scraps were composted or served to the farm animals, coffee grounds were used to fertilize the garden. Dick and Carol have incorporated this philosophy of sustainability into their business from day one. For The Cookery, being sustainable is a three legged stool, the business must be economically sustainable, socially sustainable and environmentally sustainable in order to be successful.

At The Cookery, we are committed to being a sustainable business in Door County and reducing our environmental impact. Our environmental policy is based upon the philosophy that our surroundings are precious, Door County is beautiful and we want to keep it that way for generations to enjoy. At The Cookery, our goal is to lessen our impact on the environment by reusing, reducing, and recycling and encouraging our staff and customers to implement these practices as well. We want to be responsible members of the community and the world, so we are making every effort to be sustainable.

In the process of rebuilding our restaurant, we have made every effort to make sustainable choices. Below you will see a summary of some of things we have done with the new building to make it a more efficient and environmentally friendly restaurant.

Travel Green Wisconsin

In 2008, we were excited to become a Travel Green Wisconsin certified business. Travel Green Wisconsin is a voluntary program that reviews, certifies and recognizes tourism businesses and organizations that have made a commitment to reducing their environmental impact. To learn more about the program or the certification process, visit the Travel Green Wisconsin website.

In 2008 we were certified with 61 points (30 points are needed to be certified). After completing the construction of our new building, we earned 12 additional points for the sustainable initiatives completed with the new building as well as the sustainable business practices implemented and now have 73 points. You can view our scorecard on the Travel Green Wisconsin website.

Sustainable Initiatives

Our building
The new restaurant building was completed in May 2009. Throughout the project, we made every effort to make sustainable choices. Reclaimed hardwood flooring, energy star equipment, a highly efficient HVAC system, low VOC paint and recycled products are a few sustainable initiatives put into place in the new restaurant. These changes resulted in a decrease in electricity usage by 44 percent when compared to the old restaurant building!

We also made efforts to include local artisans in the building process, examples include glass rondelles made by Popelka Trenchard of Sturgeon Bay and a tile wall hanging in our entry by Clay Bay Pottery.

Local and organic ingredients
We have incorporated many local ingredients (e.g., cherries, whitefish, apples, wine) into our menu for years, now we are taking that one step further. You will now see additional local items from Door County and Wisconsin farms, orchards and businesses on the menu and we continue to try to add more. The following is a list of our regular local suppliers:

seaquist orchards / sister bay
j & m fisheries / gills rock
jorns’ sugar bush / egg harbor
sully’s produce / sturgeon bay
tim biwer farms / fish creek
otto’s meats / luxemburg
lautenbach’s orchard country market / fish creek
neuske’s applewood smoked meats / wittenburg
country ovens / forestville
ron’s cheese / luxemburg
vern’s cheese/ chilton

We will be incorporating more organic items into the menu. This year we took a big step by finding a source to serve organic Wisconsin eggs throughout our menu.

No more Styrofoam!
We have now switched to eco-friendly take-out containers including compostable coffee cups that are made from renewable resources and biodegradable. Our take-out containers are also made of a sugar cane fiber-based paper board called bagasse and are sustainable, compostable and biodegradable.

Recycling…even our fryer oil
We have had a recycling program in place for years to recycle all allowable materials including our fryer oil.

Reducing water usage
In addition to water saving tactics in the kitchen, we have stopped serving water automatically when you are seated. Restaurants are big consumers of water and we are trying to cut down on our water usage. We are more than happy to serve you a glass of water, just ask!

These changes have resulted a decrease in water usage in the new building by 45 percent.

Printing on recycled paper
We are making an effort to print on recycled paper as much as possible. You will notice this year that many of our promotional materials have at least 30% post-consumer content.

Reuse
We practice the philosophy of “reuse” in many ways at The Cookery. Cardboard boxes get reused to ship our mail order products, cinnamon and caramel rolls that aren’t sold at the end of the day get turned into bread pudding, and plastic buckets (cherry buckets, sour cream containers) are used for storage. And these are just a few of the ways we reuse items.

These are just a few of things we are doing to do our part, and we’re continually striving for more.