Inextricably linked with take-away meals, it seems, is the idea of disposability. Buy the food – take it home – extract it from its packaging – throw the packaging away. No effort, no washing up, just trash. But it needn’t be this way. You can have a take-away, without the throw-away.
One of our favourite local take-aways is El Salsa. They have a trailer that they take to all sorts of festivals and events, but they also have it in the car park of our local farm shop several evenings a week over the summer.
Our favourite take-away
One of the reasons we are so keen (apart from the delicious food) is their ethos:
All our food is made from scratch, using only the freshest, quality ingredients…We are committed to sourcing locally where possible. We buy farm fresh welsh beef, chicken & pork from our local butcher. Cheese that’s made just up the road, we grow our own & source vegetables & herbs from local farms when in season. We like to be kind to our planet & use only Bio-degradable takeaway containers.
But after a few visits, we decided that whist bio-degradable containers are good, reusing containers over and over is better. So, we’ve started taking our own. Finally last night, I remembered to take my camera and got round to taking some photos, which naturally led to a conversation about the subject. And the up-shot? They are now considering encouraging customers to bring their own containers and offering a discount to those who do. How great is that?
The Snail of Happiness 
Jane Miller
/ July 22, 2016What an awesome idea! Need to think about this! Love your Blog!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ July 22, 2016Thank you. It’s not always easy to do, but worth trying… especially with a small local business.
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Pat
/ July 22, 2016I would certainly do business with these people if I were anywhere near there! What a marvelous place. And the food looks good, too. 🙂
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The Snail of Happiness
/ July 22, 2016The food is delicious – and the staff are friendly – what more could we ask for?
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thecontentedcrafter
/ July 22, 2016Now that is good! Well done you and them!! 🙂
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The Snail of Happiness
/ July 23, 2016I’m feeling very pleased about all this
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Born To Organize
/ July 23, 2016That’s a terrific idea!
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katechiconi
/ July 22, 2016Makes sense. It doesn’t fill up your recycling bin, they don’t have to buy the consumables (probably nicely packaged in plastic…) and happy customers get a small discount. Good business.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ July 23, 2016All wins 🙂
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anne54
/ July 23, 2016I would love to have something like this close by. To be environmentally conscious and have delicious food ….. heaven.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ July 23, 2016We are very lucky here in west Wales – there are lots of small food producers and businesses and we do our best to support them as much as possible.
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ladyredspecs
/ July 23, 2016I’m going to sound very old, but I remember when take away fish and chips came wrapped in newspaper and when you ordered take way food from the local Chinese cafe, you took a saucepan and lid with you to carry your food home. That was suburban Melbourne in the 1960s. It’s time we all made more effort to reduce reuse and recycle
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The Snail of Happiness
/ July 23, 2016I too remember fish and chips in newspaper! To be fair, our local chippy do put there stuff in a strong paper bag where possible, so they are ok. I, however, have never heard of taking your saucepan to the Chinese – that is genius and something I’d love to see everyone doing these days. Our local Chinese (which we use extremely rarely) serves everything in plastic boxes and I haven’t had the heart to tackle them yet… although I do always reuse any of their containers that come our way.
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crawcraftsbeasties
/ July 26, 2016Wow, how great that this company have taken your good idea and run with it! Their food sounds delicious as well… Perhaps a visit to west Wales is in order 😀
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The Snail of Happiness
/ July 26, 2016fingers crossed that they actually do it
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crawcraftsbeasties
/ July 27, 2016Let’s hope so! Keep us posted 😃
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Gillie
/ July 27, 2016We do that! Once we realised that almost anywhere would fill our own tea/coffee cups we bought Joco cups (glass and silicone), stainless steel water bottles and stainless steel lunch boxes. Nobody has turned us down yet, but we do get a few funny looks. In Romania I used my reusable vegetable bags in the supermarket and that DID cause a stir, not least because the poor chap couldn’t decide if he could still the price sticker on it or not. Eventually let him scan it and then threw the sticker away (next plot to get rid of the stickers!!)
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The Snail of Happiness
/ July 27, 2016Oh that’s great… we have insulated cups, but whenever possible I just make a flask of coffee to take along with me. I now usually travel with a coffee filter cone, cloth filters and a jar of ground coffee so I can make my own.
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