Spearheaded by groups such as; ‘The Gang of Four’ (a group of winemakers vowing to use only grapes), and with cult followers throughout the world, ‘natty’ wines became the obvious and only choice for me, opening up a rabbit hole inside Pandora’s wine box!

All the wines I sell are, at the very minimum, organically farmed. Most are biodynamic (a holistic, ecological, and ethical approach to farming, gardening, food, and nutrition), and many are simply just grapes and nothing more, grown using regenerative farming practice.

I now stock one the most diverse collection of natural wines in Ireland, carrying a few wines from some of the most cult, rare and unique vineyards and wine curators on the planet. A demonstration of my love to share good quality wine and food, along with the passion of their makers, with my customers.

The Gallery Café, Wine & Tapas Bar in Westport, now only sells ‘take-away’ coffee in either recycled (jam) jars or ceramic mugs (if suited). I have read several articles over the course of this last year that have spurred me to make this move. I believe that we are the first café / wine bar / coffee shop to do so in Ireland!

Le me explain. Headlines such as ‘guilt free coffee’ or ‘environmentally friendly coffee’, just because a company or organisation has started using biodegradable takeaway cups, are quite simple, untrue and equally misleading.

How can a single use product, that uses the earth’s resources, be deemed ‘environmentally friendly’?

This is pure irony. Any product that has a toll, no matter how small on the planet, by definition, can only be referred to as ‘Less Environmentally Damaging’ (a term I coined over ten years ago). Even a biodegradable cup has to be manufactured and transported in the first place! It makes zero sense.

Take away coffee, the clue is in the phrase! The Gallery sells LED products, so if you’d like a Cosmic5 in a take away cup, please, bring your own, or feel free to get one in a super stylish, and LED, (without the flashing lights) up-cycled jam jar!

La Tour Cycle Café in Britain that is doing this same thing using ceramic mugs and cups donated by local people to use as their take away vessels.

Click here for an older post about biodegradable plastics. It’s from 2010 and let’s hope that tech has moved on since then to manufacture better quality and more widely and effective biodegradable products, still, less is more, just don’t create the need for a take away cup in the first place!

Why The Gallery says ‘NO’ to Palm Oil?

Palm oil is a globally traded agricultural commodity that is used in 50 percent of all consumer goods, from lipstick and packaged food to body lotion and biofuels. Approximately 85 percent of palm oil is grown in the tropical countries of Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) on industrial plantations that have severe impacts on the environment, forest peoples and the climate.

Initially, I was thinking to remove this humble fruit, at least until a more appropriate supplier, i.e. more sustainable, closer to Ireland and organic (obviously!) source could be found. However, I have decided that it is simpler to just take it off the menu entirely, and that’s without going into all the chemicals sprayed on the huge-scale of these crops, and the colossal amount of water required to produce just 1kg of them. (It takes up to 1,000 litres of water to grow just 1 kg of avocados–roughly 3 avocados.)

It wasn’t until recently that I came across a few documentaries, whilst researching my film nights, about the negative impact of the avocado, not only on the planet, but also it’s people, effectively the planet too, we’re all little planets after all, making up a universe of the earth!

Anyway the short and tall is that I am taking the avocado off the menu. It’s interesting how long the road is, in terms of my own journey into food, and the paths that our food takes to reach us are incredible and sometimes totally unnecessary.

Please read the following article about salmon farming!

I also took wild salmon off the menu due to their decline in numbers, we use Goatsbridge Trout as they are farmed in earthen ponds that replicate their natural habitat as closely as possible, living a happy life.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/01/is-farming-salmon-bad-for-the-environment