6 September 2011

Guest Host: Bill Fritsch

Ecotopia

Exploring Ecosystems: Environmental, Social, Technological” Each week Ecotopia explores a topic on a concern that relates to a more sustainable world, and we tie together diverse concerns from science, technology, and society.

Tonight’s Topics
1. Farm products
–GRUB: growing, raising, & selling farm items
–Sierra Nevada Brewery: buying & preparing items for consumption

2. Recycling/Composting
–GRUB: http://grubchico.org/compost
–Sierra Nevada Brewery: http://www.sierranevada.com/environment/recycling.html

3. Bicycling as alternative transportation
–GRUB: hosted most of the recent Chico Bicycle Festival
–Sierra Nevada Brewery: encouraging employees to bike to work

Listen to the Program

Camerone Scott

  • GRUB Farm
  • The Noetics (bass, manager) / Strange Seed Studio
  • People On The Moon

Bob Littell

  • Taproom and Restaurant General Manager (also the Big Room)
  • Mossy Creek
  • Make It So

GRUB

www.grubchico.org

1525 Dayton Rd (continuation of Nord Avenue)
Chico

Who is the GRUB Cooperative?

We live in intentional community; a collective of resources connecting communities in our community to food in one way or another.

Sustainably Farming in Chico since 2007, the GRUB CSA Farm (Community Supported Agriculture) is a diversified vegetable farm growing forty-five crops in more than 180 distinct varieties to feed Chico’s longest running CSA. While we specialize in growing heirloom tomatoes, summer lettuce, gourmet potatoes, and heirloom dry beans, the strength of a CSA lies in the diversity of its crops. It is the great diversity of crops that we grow combined with responsible land stewardship that allows us to be confident in our ability to provide our members with an abundance of produce each week throughout the growing season. Compost, cover crops, and crop rotations, along with OMRI listed soil amendments help us give back to the soil that gives us so much. No chemically synthesized or petroleum based fertilizers, fungicides, or pesticides are ever used on our farm. At the GRUB CSA Farm we are dedicated to sustainable farming practices, and take our responsibilities as stewards of the land seriously. Everything in your weekly CSA share is grown by us truly, and is as local as the trip from your house to ours.

The best way to enjoy what the farm has to offer is to become a member of our CSA program (Community Supported Agriculture).

Thursday Night Farmer’s Market 6-9 pm,

Wednesday Morning Farmer’s Market 7:30 am–1 pm in North Chico, North Valley Plaza parking lot near Trader Joe’s.

Our produce can also be found at the Chico Natural Foods Co-op at 8th and Main St, at S&S Produce on Mangrove Ave just south of highway 99, and some of the more distinctive kitchens of Chico restaurants.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company

www.sierranevada.com

1075 E 20th St
Chico

Taproom and Restaurant General Manager Bob Littell and Chef Micheal Iles.

Our vegetarian entrées change with the seasons, showcasing the freshest locally grown produce and most succulent ingredients. All of our breads are baked in-house daily. Malted barley from our brewing process gives our whole-grain rolls and pizza crusts a tender, chewy bite, and sauces based on our ales and lagers flavor many other dishes.

We serve choice aged beef from our own locally raised herd, fed on a special natural diet that includes brewer’s yeast with beer and the nutritious spent grains from our brewery. Like our wood-fired pizzas and flatbreads, our grilled meats are cooked over local almond wood – which burns hotter than most woods – to sear meats quickly, locking in juices and flavor.

Sustainability Practices

Honored 2010 by:

  • Sacramento Area Sustainable Business program
  • Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP)
  • Environmental Protection Agency.

The Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP) is administered by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle). WRAP provides an opportunity for California businesses and nonprofit organizations to gain public recognition for their outstanding waste reduction efforts and lets the community know the business takes waste reduction seriously. WRAP evaluates the waste reduction, procurement, and education activities in the internal business practices of the applicant, not in the services or products it may provide. WRAP also provides businesses with examples of successful waste reduction techniques, which they may adopt as their own.

Environment

Since 2005, we have significantly reduced the amount of material sent to landfill and increased the amount of material recovered for beneficial use. Our comprehensive waste diversion program diverts 99.6% of the solid waste leaving our facility from the landfill.  With the addition of more awareness and even more creative recycling programs, we hope to drive this number as close to 100% as possible.  Materials that are currently being collected for recycling include (but are certainly not limited to): cardboard, shrink wrap, glass, scrap metal, wood, paper, and plastic strapping.  One hundred percent of the spent grain and yeast is recovered and used as a protein rich supplement for cattle and dairy lots within 50 miles of the brewery.  A small portion feeds the Sierra Nevada cattle that are served in the restaurant.

Compost
The newest addition to the Sierra Nevada resource recovery program is a HotRot composting system.  The HotRot is a large, in-vessel composting system that allows us to compost waste from the brewing process and discarded food scraps from our restaurant and is the first of its kind in the country.  Sierra Nevada invested in this state-of-the-art composting system due to a lack of composting options in our region.  We can compost filter pads from our filtration process, spent hops from the dry hopping process, spent grain screened from our water treatment plant, food and paper towels from break rooms, and all food and paper materials from our restaurant and concert venue.  We can feed approximately 5,000 lbs of organic material into the machine daily. The finished compost is highly valuable and provides a nutritious amendment for our hop field, restaurant garden, and employee garden area. This composting system helps us close the loop on discarded organics and prevents these materials from ending up in a landfill.

Honored 2010 for its sustainability practices by:

  • Sacramento Area Sustainable Business program
  • Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP)
  • Environmental Protection Agency.

The Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP) is administered by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle). WRAP provides an opportunity for California businesses and nonprofit organizations to gain public recognition for their outstanding waste reduction efforts and lets the community know the business takes waste reduction seriously. WRAP evaluates the waste reduction, procurement, and education activities in the internal business practices of the applicant, not in the services or products it may provide. WRAP also provides businesses with examples of successful waste reduction techniques, which they may adopt as their own.

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