96 Meals Donated, 501 kg of CO2 Saved: Our Q3 2026 Surplus Food Rescue Impact Report

Our Q3 2026 impact report has just landed with our catering team at Mayfair Catering — a month-by-month, venue-by-venue measure of the surplus event food we have rescued, the meals it has become, and the water and carbon that saved. The September 2026 numbers alone: 404 kg of surplus food rescued, 96 meals donated, 501 kg of CO₂e saved, and 196,601 litres of water conserved.

Why Surplus Food Rescue Matters in Conference Catering

Food waste is the single biggest sustainability problem in our industry, and the one we have put the most effort into solving. Hospitality accounts for roughly 12% of all UK food waste, and a conference venue over-caters by up to 20% by design — because the alternative is running out mid-event. That gap sits inside every lunch service, every coffee break, every delegate box; close it, and you close most of the sustainability gap for a conference venue.

We have spent the better part of a decade working on it from every angle we can reach, which is why Cavendish Venues is now the only specialist conference and meeting venue operator in London to hold B Corp certification — scoring 86.7 in the B Impact Assessment, with food waste one of the areas where the audit went deepest. The longer version is in our article on reducing food waste, but the short version is a stack of practical measures that each take a different slice off the problem:

• Upstream — rescued "imperfect" produce. Up to 63% of the fresh produce Mayfair Catering uses in our kitchens comes from suppliers of rescued "imperfect" fruit and veg — perfectly good food rejected by supermarket grading for being the wrong shape, size or colour.
• At the point of service — menu and buffet design. Our chefs redesign menus every three months against the Soil Association's seasonal guides, and our guide to room and catering set-ups explains how buffet style, counter height and station layout change how much food comes back uneaten. Smaller, more frequent plates waste less than big piled trays.
• Menu composition — Meat-Free Fridays and the Coolfood Pledge. Running Meat-Free Fridays across our venues cuts emissions by 73%, land use by 75% and water use by 50% against the equivalent meat menu. Under the Coolfood Pledge no menu we write exceeds 30% animal-based protein.
• Downstream — surplus food rescue and redistribution. This impact report. Any surplus event food that we cannot sell through our Too Good To Go partnership at £3.90 a meal is collected, weighed, redistributed and turned into meals donated to people in need. Full report figures below.
• Measurement — AI-assisted smart bins. We are trialling bins that weigh and photograph what comes back, so portion forecasting improves event by event.
• Convening the industry. In March 2025 we hosted the National Food Waste Conference at 22 Duchess Mews, bringing together food waste processors, producers, local authorities and charities — because the problem is bigger than any one venue can solve on its own.

The Headline Numbers — September 2026

Across Mayfair Catering operations serving Cavendish Venues, September 2026 broke down as:

• Deliveries received: 6 (1 per week)
• Items ordered: 98 (23 per week)
• Surplus food rescued: 404 kg (94 kg per week)
• Meals donated: 96 (22 per week)
• CO₂e saved: 501 kg (117 kg per week)
• Water conserved: 196,601 litres (45,873 litres per week)

To put the 501 kg of CO₂e in context, the methodology (developed with The Greenhouse accelerator at Imperial College and The Centre for Climate Change Innovation, using GOV.UK conversion factors) equates it to 4,096 km of car travel avoided, 3 households heated for a month, 60 lightbulbs taken off the grid, or 20 trees' worth of annual sequestration. The 196,601 litres of water conserved — because growing the food that would otherwise have been thrown away took water out of the system too — is the equivalent of roughly 1,638 ten-minute showers, 3,932 laundry cycles, or 39,320 toilet flushes.

Venue by Venue: September 2026

September's rescued volume came from the two venues where the collection programme is currently running day in, day out:

Basinghall
436 kg of CO₂e saved · 177,925 litres of water conserved · 4 deliveries · 87 items · 346 kg of surplus food rescued · 82 meals donated. Our newest venue, and by some distance the biggest contributor to the month — the equivalent of 3,567 car km, 2 households heated, 52 lightbulbs or 17 trees.

The Minster Building
65 kg of CO₂e saved · 18,676 litres of water conserved · 2 deliveries · 11 items · 58 kg of surplus food rescued · 14 meals donated.

To confirm before publishing: add to-date (programme start → September 2026) totals per venue from the full PDF, and confirm whether the collection programme is live at Hallam Conference Centre, 1 America Square and Cavendish Conference Centre (22 Duchess Mews) — September had no activity at those three.

What This Means for Your CSR Reporting

If you are organising a conference, AGM, awards dinner or multi-day training event at a Cavendish venue, the surplus food from your event is tracked, weighed, redistributed and reported — and we can tell you, in kilograms, meals, CO₂e and litres of water, what your event contributed. That is the kind of data point that stands up in a CSR report, an ESG disclosure, or a sustainability questionnaire from your procurement team.

The methodology is published alongside the figures: GOV.UK carbon factors (0.122 kg CO₂e per car km), Waterwise and Water UK household water benchmarks, developed with The Greenhouse accelerator at Imperial College and The Centre for Climate Change Innovation. These are the numbers independent reviewers will want to see.

It also sits alongside our wider credentials: the B Corp score of 86.7, the Visit London Sustainable Venue of the Year award (won twice), and the Conference Awards Sustainable Venue Award (won three times). The whole picture is on our environmental sustainability page.

Plan a Sustainable Event in London

All five of our London conference venues — two in the West End and three in the City of London — operate to the same sustainability standard. Surplus food rescue, Too Good To Go redistribution and B Corp catering are included on every event as standard, at no premium.

To check availability, request a proposal, or arrange a site visit, call our events team on 0207 706 7700 or email enquiries@cavendishvenues.com.