ALBERT FRANCH SUNYER - THE PIONEER

AT HELSINKI ZERO-WASTE RESTAURANT NOLLA, CHEF ALBERT FRANCH SUNYER DEDICATES HIMSELF TO BEING ENVIRONMENTALLY AWARE AND CELEBRATING LOCAL PRODUCE IN ALL ITS FORMS. WORDS: LOUISE LONG

"I remember very well," says Albert Franch Sunyer of his light bulb moment. "I was inside one of the rubbish rooms in a restaurant in Helsinki. There were five big containers and you couldn't walk into the room because of the amount of trash." It was filled with bio-waste and vast amounts of packaging, all kept fiercely air-conditioned round the clock, he recalls.

At the time, the Catalan-born chef was three years into a series of stints in the Finnish capital's top kitchens, including two-Michelinstar Chez Dominique (now closed) and Olo (one star). The latter is where he met chefs Carlos Henriques and Luka Balac, with whom he'd go on to establish Nolla, the first zero-waste restaurant in the Nordics.

There's no kitchen bin at Nolla. No single-use packaging and no cling film or disposable food containers. Serving plates are made from waste clay, kitchen uniforms upcycled from discarded textiles and water glasses made with used bottles from the Presidential Palace. There's even a high-tech composter, nicknamed Lauri, in the dining room, from which data is recorded, analysed and presented at weekly team meetings.

Ingredients, meanwhile, are sourced directly from producers in order to cut down on packaging. Only salt and sugar, in compostable paper bags, are supplied by a wholesaler. Each ingredient presents its own challenges, from the sourcing of Finnish ginger and tomatoes to decanting the 1,750pint vats of Finnish rapeseed oil (delivered twice a year to Franch Sunyer's parking space outside the restaurant) into carafes that can be stored in the basement.