As a Green Key certified establishment, biodiversity is important to us. Since spring 2017, we have kept hundreds of thousands of bees in double-deep hives that are protected behind a glass wall. These busy bees have already pollinated countless flowers in Bern and produced lots of delicious honey. Our bee colonies help to maintain biodiversity in the region. They are professionally cared for by beekeeper Stefan Wehrli, who has been working in accordance with the guidelines for organic beekeeping since 2007. We use our organic honey in some of the dishes we prepare for our guests.
As a Green Key establishment, we are committed to sustainability, not least when it comes to food. We prepare our dishes in an environmentally friendly way using organic, seasonal and/or locally produced products. And we save perfectly good food from going to waste. This means our guests get to enjoy home-made jam. The fruit for this is supplied by the Swiss food bank organisation Schweizer Tafel. We rescue the excess fruit produced and donate the value of the produce in return. Schweizer Tafel can then use these donations for its projects. In addition, we also regularly source the ingredients for our jus (basic sauces) from «Gmüesgarte». – a project in Switzerland that sells excess produce from the region that does not meet the usual standards required by retailers and would otherwise be destroyed.
In 2023, we saved more than 3.5 tonnes of food. Whenever possible, we buy and use excess food: we have turned tomatoes into long-life sauces and plums and raspberries into jam. In this way, we make it easy for our guests to protect the environment – including when eating – while also offering you outstanding, fascinating taste experiences.
As a Green Key certified establishment, we want to drive environmental protection forward. At the same time, we want to offer our guests healthy, sustainable taste experiences. Together with SHIFT Switzerland and Impact Hub Bern, we have looked at the “circular economy and food” issue. And our culinary team has delivered an entirely new take on the traditional “Berner Platte”. The result was a dish that – whenever possible – can be changed to use quality ingredients that have been overproduced in order to cut down on food waste. A dish that reimagines a local tradition using different methods of preparation and preservation. A dish which uses less meat, but uses it more consciously. These kinds of flexibly designed dishes also enable us to make banquets and buffets at the Kursaal Bern more local, sustainable and innovative.
As a Green Key establishment, we are particularly committed to protecting the environment. We purchase local, seasonal ingredients and products, and focus on gentle – and therefore healthy – preparation and cooking techniques. Our menus and buffets are tailored to our individual customers, and we are happy to make them vegetarian or vegan. We also maintain successful, long-standing partnerships with suppliers from the region. That is important to us.
As a Green Key establishment, we are actively committed to sustainability. Together with our guests, we want to minimise food waste. We are happy to set out food waste containers on the banquet tables at our catered buffets. Our customers are then welcome to use these containers to take any leftover food home with them. We inform our customers about the boxes during the planning phase of their event. And at the buffet itself, we make sure that all guests are aware of this convenient, free option.
As a Green Key certified establishment, we are committed to protecting the environment. In doing so, we want to be quantifiable and transparent. We have analysed our food waste together with United Against Waste and are constantly working to reduce it. The data from every analysis is used to help plan future events. Our goal is to only prepare as much food as we need to satisfy our guests. This allows us to avoid food waste every step of the way – from purchasing to service.
