Potager Garden & Café

At Potager, we aim to treat people well by making tasty food from good quality ingredients. We understand the significance of the environment both for our customers and our staff, and aspire to exist in the long term, and prosper, while minimising our environmental impact.
As sustainability is three-fold: economic, social and environmental, we accept that it is hard to reduce consumption whilst growing a business. We therefore focus our attention on reducing waste and energy use, by using ethical energy sources and ensuring that we make the best decisions when buying produce for use in the café.
We are fully aware of the environmental impact of running Potager and are passionate about reducing this. That’s why we compost all of the food waste produced on site and use it in our garden, to grow beautiful plants for our visitors to enjoy. We recycle all recyclable packaging and bulk buy ingredients to reduce our material waste. On site, solar energy contributes to water heating and we have a photovoltaic array that is supplemented by a 100% renewable grid electricity supply.  We collect rainwater and use it to flush toilets and water the garden and greenhouse.  Additionally, the gas used in the café is carbon offset to ensure that we run the café with as minimal environmental impact as possible.
We understand that it is of increasing importance to know first-hand where produce used on our menu is sourced. That’s why we are committed to supporting local suppliers and have a continual close relationship with them. Essential Trading is a workers cooperative that provides our quality, ethically produced mix of organic and non-organic dried goods. Westcountry are our fresh food suppliers who tailor our orders to British produce when in season and ensure that any international produce is sourced from Europe where possible. Penbugle is a small organic farm in Liskeard that ensures the best animal welfare standards for the hens that produce our tasty organic eggs. On site, we grow fresh produce including salad and tomatoes in the space we have available, when in season. If you see ‘Potager Grown’ on our menu, it means it’s been grown by us!
Our menu is tailored around good quality, British seasonal produce which makes up the majority of the dishes we serve. We are committed to using more food from our doorstep and we aspire to grow more food on site for the café, and in doing so, incorporate an element of education and training.
We are currently working on implementing a sustainable food policy in the café to help us focus our efforts in the places we can have the most impact. This will be available to our customers to view, so we can be as transparent as possible. As well as ensuring the sustainability of the café business, we are hoping to develop a project that tackles social isolation in our community and brings the benefit of gardening activity to a greater number of people.
We hope that our customers view Potager as a project that exists for the love of what we do.