Mullingar business plants 10,000 trees and offsets carbon footprint for a decade

(Above)Denise Buckley and David Quirke of Wholesome Kitchen, Mullingar.

A Mullingar restaurant has offset its carbon footprint for the next decade by planting 10,000 trees last year.

Wholesome Kitchen on Dominick Street signed up for Self Help Africa’s One Million Trees campaign to both offset its carbon footprint and also to help rural communities in Africa.

At the start of their partnership with Self Help Africa, the restaurant’s energy consumption was audited, and the data was then used to estimate the number of trees that would need to be planted for offsetting purposes.

Last year, 9,600 trees were planted in Africa and more than 400 in Ireland, enough to offset Wholesome Kitchen’s carbon footprint for the rest of 2020s.

Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner, David Quirke, who runs Wholesome Kitchen with his wife Denise Buckley, said that sustainability has informed all of their decisions since they started the business in August 2019.

“Right from the get-go, sustainability has been important to us. We don’t shout about it – it’s just something we have been doing in the background, from compostable packaging, the way we set out the building, to only using LED lighting that is powered by 100pc green, renewable energy. There is a much bigger picture with it,” he said.

David says that the restaurant chose to partner with Self Help Africa due to a number of factors.

“The reason is that money goes a lot further. You are planting trees in a continent that is the least responsible for climate change but is also the most affected. Also, aside from planting the trees and the amazing effect it has on the environment, you are creating jobs, shade, food and shelter for the people who are planting them.

“I just feel at the moment there is a lot green-washing out there. A lot of companies are making claims that they are using recyclable materials and planted X number of trees. There are a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon, but there aren’t a lot of audits out there. That’s why partnered with them – to be transparent and to show that we are not just doing something for the PR benefits.”

Currently employing 25 people, Wholesome Kitchen have been busier than ever throughout the pandemic, David says.

“We are lucky. We probably doubled the business that we had the year previous, and we were busy then. We have just been very lucky. There is a huge focus on healthy eating and we have had a huge support from local people as well,” he said.

Plans to launch a new meal plan service that will deliver chilled high quality healthy dishes to customers across the country are well advanced, and with the return of in-house diners on July 5, Wholesome Kitchen is gearing up for a busy summer.

However, although they have planted enough trees to offset their carbon footprint for years to come, David says that Wholesome Kitchen are only getting started.

“With the meal plan, we are going to plant a tree for every single order. That will be a huge loss on our margin, but it’s something that we don’t care about. We are not in the business to make a lot of money, we want to have a positive effect with everything we do,” he said.