#SustainabilityMonth: SASSI Trailblazer Chefs 2016

The six new trailblazers are Carl Van Rooyen of The Vineyard Hotel; Claire Blinkhorn-Street of Haute Cabriere; Leon Coetzee of The Kurland Hotel, Plettenberg Bay; Constantijn Hahndiek of Hartford House, KZN; Simon Ash of The Fat Fish Restaurant, Plettenberg Bay; and Andrea Burgener of The Leopard Restaurant in Johannesburg.

SASSI Trailblazer Chefs 2016 - (pictured, from left to right) Claire Blinkhorn-Street of Haute Cabriere; Constantijn Hahndiek of Hartford House, KZN; Carl Van Rooyen of The Vineyard Hotel; Simon Ash of The Fat Fish Restaurant, Plettenberg Bay and Diana Howel representing Leon Coetzee of The Kurland Hotel, Plettenberg Bay. (SASSI Trailblazer not pictured: Andrea Burgener of The Leopard Restaurant in Johannesburg)

SASSI was established in 2004 to drive change in the local seafood industry by working with suppliers and sellers of seafood, as well as informing and inspiring consumers to make sustainable seafood choices.

Building on the success of the SASSI "Green, Orange, Red” guide amongst the South African public, the SASSI Trailblazer Awards recognises and celebrates chefs who are actively championing sustainable seafood practices in their restaurants.

Pavs Pillay, programme manager at WWF-SA, commented, “Our partnerships with chefs are inspired by a love of seafood, the oceans and a shared commitment to help restore our overfished marine resources. The chefs we are recognising have gone the extra mile in not only helping to get the sustainability message across, but also in believing in the SASSI message by employing sustainability practices.”

Clare Mack, of Spill Communications, and the awards organiser, said, “We believe that the SASSI Trailblazer Awards is increasingly helping to raise awareness and guide chefs to make sustainable seafood choices. It’s gratifying to see, in the fourth year of these awards, that many restaurants are adopting sustainable practices in seafood, without any intervention or prompting. Sustainability is now mainstream, it has really caught on.”

The following criteria was judged:

• The restaurants seafood sustainability policy.
  
• The effectiveness of their communication on their seafood sustainability practices to customers, employees and suppliers.
  
• Their level of engagement in communicating their seafood sustainability practices to wider audience.
  
• The ‘Trailblazer Factor’, i.e. those chefs and restaurants that are going the extra mile in promoting and supporting seafood sustainability.