More local produce and organic products

Part of our efforts for more sustainability in our carbon footprint goes through the kitchen. In 2022, we made arrangements with a local, organic farm-to-fork vegetable producer and with a slaughterhouse that only supplies organic meat from animals raised and slaughtered on local farms.

“I put a lot of energy into finding new suppliers. Both to raise the level and the quality of the food we make and to inspire my chefs,” explains Stefan Hansen.

As head chef, he has the daily responsibility for the operation and development of the kitchen at Gorrissen Federspiel’s domicile in Axel Towers in Copenhagen. With a background as sous chef at the Michelinstarred restaurant Frederiksminde in Præstø, he has always cared about sourcing the best possible ingredients for his kitchen.

“We were one of the first restaurants in the country to set up our own kitchen garden and become completely self-sufficient. It meant everything for the quality of the food we made. Giving talented chefs better and different ingredients to work with sharpens our creativity and our passion to make food,” says Stefan Hansen.

Frederiksminde was also awarded the first Michelin green star in the country.

“Own” kitchen garden

Now Stefan Hansen and his team of chefs at Axel Towers have the closest thing to a kitchen garden that they will ever have through a new partnership with the organic producer Godis Grønt in Lejre near Roskilde, about 40 kilometres from Copenhagen. It was a tip from Noma’s sous chef that led Stefan Hansen to the new supplier, which the three-star Michelin restaurant co-founded and sources its produce from.

“The taste to the vegetables from Godis Grønt is 200% better. The vegetables are taken directly from the soil, placed in reusable boxes and delivered here in the kitchen a few hours later,” says Stefan Hansen.

Choosing a small, local supplier also allows you to influence which crops are planted in early spring and can be delivered when the season begins in May.

“I can influence what size broccoli, what kind of pointed cabbage and herbs we get. It’s an advantage when we plan the menus of the season. I talk to the grower during the week. To hear how it’s all coming along. And on Friday morning, I know what I can expect to receive on Mondays, and I can plan accordingly.”

Since June, the kitchen in Copenhagen has sourced a little more than two tons of vegetables from Godis Grønt. In the 2023 season, the kitchen is expected to source practically everything the producer can supply – probably more than five tons. The current supplier will still be providing organic produce when the seasonal pro - duce from the grower in Lejre runs out in November, or if the need for special produce arises.

Organic – as far as possible

The only way to go. That is the very short answer to the question why the organic way is important to Stefan Hansen and the food he and his team of seven chefs and one kitchen assistant make every day for the canteen, special events and the takeaway scheme. Pesticides have no place in the food we eat, he says.

“You don’t need to have seen many news stories about the challenges with toxic residues in our soil and groundwater over the past year to understand the point that the organic way is the only right way to go.”

With a share of between 60% and 90% organically sourced ingredients, the kitchen has the silver Organic Cuisine Label. But it is difficult or close to impossible to get the gold label because it requires at least 90% of the ingredients sourced to be organic.

“Some ingredients may be difficult or impossible to source organically. That’s why the conventional way sometimes trumps the organic way when we have to balance the impact on the environment and the climate. For instance, choosing between a conventionally, but sensibly grown Danish cucumber versus buying an organic cucumber from Spain individually wrapped in plastic. Here, the non-organic choice is the least problematic,” says Stefan Hansen.

Better meat on the menu

The kitchen also has a new meat supplier. Spis Min Gris (Eat my pig) is a small slaughterhouse that sources its organic meat from farms where the animals have lived a good life before being slaughtered on the farm. Transportation of live animals is not an option. These animals have been pasture-raised on the farm, yielded plenty of milk and laid eggs before they are slaughtered.

“It makes so much sense. You know who the farmer is and where the animals have lived. None of the animals are bred for the sole purpose of being slaughtered,” says Stefan Hansen.

Unlike the vegetables, the planning of meat deliveries is more challenging when the availability is determined by the slaughter rhythm of the farms. In addition, the best restaurants in the city have a first right to the meat. Still, almost two thirds of the kitchen’s meat was sourced from Spis Min Gris in 2022, while the rest came from the usual supplier.

While the meat in the canteen buffet is very close to being 100% organic – game meat is not available organically and therefore reduces the bottom line a little – organic traceability for the seafood which the kitchen sources from the supplier Fiskerikajen is a little trickier. Wherever possible, the head chef chooses line-caught, sustainable fish over farmed fish. And the quality is consistently very high.

“The supplier is doing his very best to do all the right things in an industry where this is increasingly difficult. They must be credited for that.”

In addition to the weekly vegetarian day already on the menu, Gorrissen Federspiel will introduce a weekly fish day in 2023. This means that two out of five days will be meatless.

Great food makes happy people

Vegetables have really taken over a main role in the meals and can easily provide the proteins that many people are used to getting from meat or chicken.

“I would like much more greens. People have become aware that meat production –no matter how good the quality is – is more harmful to the climate,” says Stefan Hansen and explains that his quest for the best possible ingredients continues.

“It makes me happy to be able to work with the very best ingredients. At the same time, the chefs here in the kitchen are very talented and specialise in getting the very best out of each ingredient. I believe you can taste that in the food we make.”