BH Live’s sustainable food sourcing policy has helped place London Aquatics Centre and Copper Box Arena in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park top of the London sports venues’ medals table for providing sustainable fish choices for elite athletes, event delegates and dinner guests at the two former Olympic venues
In 2012, the London Olympics became the first major sporting event to serve only verifiably sustainable fish. The food vision for the Games was widely hailed by conservation groups and sparked a major campaign to call on other large fish-serving businesses to serve sustainable fish, leading to the UK Government, NHS in England and Wales and nearly one third of Universities following suit.
“Today’s medal table identifies four specialist contract event caterers carrying the torch for fish sustainability and driving the campaign to make sustainable fish the only fish on the menu,” says Ruth Westcott, Co-ordinator of Sustainable Fish Cities.
“We’ve worked hard over the past six years to establish BH Live as a leading supplier of creative, high-end catering for top national and international events that has taken the sustainable message right to its heart,” adds Alex Robertson, BH Live Head of Hospitality. “Seeing us top the league at London’s most iconic sporting venues is testimony to our success.”
BH Live has a creative and sustainable approach to delivering hospitality for conferencing and exhibition clients and events goers across multiple venues. Its unequivocal attitude towards food quality, provenance and sustainability, together with its social values, sets the benchmark for the event and hospitality sector.
BH Live buys ingredients from sustainable sources, and locally wherever possible. It plays an active role in the Sustainable Food Cities/Fish Cities partnership, paying particular attention to sustainable fishing and farming methods. BH Live also supports local initiatives and events to promote provenance, such as New Forest Marque Food Safaris, Sustainable Food Cities Restaurant Hops and Bournemouth’s Food Festival.
The Copper Box Arena and London Aquatics Centre opened to the public in 2013 and 2014 respectively. As the venues’ exclusive catering partner, BH Live works with operator GLL, who manages the two venues on behalf of the London Legacy Development Corporation. BH Live sources fish for events at the London venues exclusively from Southbank Fresh Fish, the most sustainably accredited fish provider in the UK and among the first to sign the Sustainable Fish Cities pledge following the London 2012 Olympics.
“We are passionately strict in adhering to all the standards qualifying fish and seafood as sustainable,” says Matt Couchman, Sales Manager, Southbank Fresh Fish. “Unlike some suppliers, if it’s in the red zone we simply won’t supply it. Despite the demand for wild sea bass, for example, as far as we’re concerned it’s off the menu. BH Live shares our ethos and specifies only fish that complies with all three principles of the MSC Fisheries Standard will be served to its customers, making them a fantastic ambassador and partner to work with.”
Elite swimmers, sponsors and guests at the recent 2016 European Aquatics Championships and Masters at the London Aquatics Centre enjoyed fish dishes using hake, salmon, smoked mackerel and sweet cure herring from Scotland, cod from Iceland, haddock from Norway and smoked in Grimsby, and cockles from England – all species from catch areas within an MCS rating of 1-3.
High profile events in the Copper Box Arena serving wholly sustainable menus in 2016 have included the Vitality Netball Superleague Grand Final, One Bauer Media Awards and TechCrunch Disrupt.
“It’s great to see both the Copper Box Arena and London Aquatics Centre continue to fly the flag for sustainable fish in legacy mode after London 2012’s commitment,” says Russ Barnes, GLL’s Partnership Manager for the two venues in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. “Sustainability is becoming increasingly important to our customers and event organisers, so this acknowledgement of our work alongside BH Live is very welcome.”
In Bournemouth, for global brand Lush Handmade Cosmetics, BH Live created themed dishes featuring sustainable ingredients suitable for a predominantly vegan and vegetarian guest list. It also showed off Dorset’s finest at the annual Dorset Business Awards, Bournemouth’s Tourism Awards and AFC Bournemouth’s End of Season Player Awards.
“This is a very proud moment for the team in what has already been a hugely successful year, winning Bournemouth Tourism’s Specialist Fine Dining Experience award and being placed as a finalist in the global AIPC Innovation Awards,” says BH Live Director of Venues, Pat Coyne. “BH Live has its roots in a coastal location where seafood is top of the menu, so signing the pledge for the Bournemouth and London venues was an obvious step for us to take. I am delighted to see our efforts in promoting food provenance and sustainability so well rewarded. Sportspeople and others attending BH Live events across the South can trust that we are playing our part in protecting fish stocks and serving the finest quality produce from the seas around the UK.”
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Notes to Editors:
For more information about BH Live please contact:
Elizabeth Symmons, PR & Corporate Communications Executive
E: press.office@bhlive.org.uk
T: (01202) 055562
About BH Live
BH Live is the South Coast’s leading operator of leisure and event venues; a social enterprise that designs and builds engaging experiences to inspire people and enrich lives.
With more than three million visits a year and over £36.5 million turnover, the organisation is changing lives – placing it at the heart of the UK’s growing social economy.
In 2015/16 BH Live hosted more than 500 events, sold over half a million cultural, sporting and entertainment tickets. They welcomed 2.4 million active participants into its leisure centres and 118,000 conference and exhibition delegates into its venues. This contributed an estimated £66.3 million to the local economy through business and cultural tourism.
For more visit bhlive.org.uk and get social with us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter @BHLIVE_UK
About BH Live Hospitality
BH Live Hospitality is BH Live’s catering team, providing event and retail services at leisure and cultural venues across Dorset, the South East and Greater London.
Terrace cafés and bars operate at more than 30 venues including Bournemouth Pavilion, Bournemouth International Centre, Littledown, Pelhams, Queen’s Park, Queen’s Park Golf Course, Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts and Portsmouth Pyramids.
Terrace cafés, bars and vending outlets also operate across the South and Greater London in partnership with Fusion Lifestyle and GLL. Locations include London Aquatics Centre (LAC) and Copper Box Arena in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
For more visit www.bhlive.org.uk/hospitality
About Sustainable Fish Cities
Sustainable Fish Cities is an initiative conceived and supported by an alliance of not-for-profit organisations. It aims to create large-scale change in the fish eaten out in the UK by asking fish serving businesses to sign the Sustainable Fish Cities pledge. By signing the pledge, businesses promise to take the appropriate steps to buy and promote sustainable seafood, to protect precious marine environments and fish stocks, and good fishing livelihoods. The London medals were awarded as follows:
- 1 point if the venue has signed up to the Sustainable Fish Cities pledge – the site will incorporate a requirement for sustainable fish into any future buying
- 1 point if the venue has a public policy on sustainable fish
- 1 point if the main caterer used by the venue has signed up to the Sustainable Fish Cities pledge for their whole business – all venues where the caterer operates will be served sustainable fish.
Sustainable Fish Cities is a campaign of the charity Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming. www.sustainweb.org.
About Southbank Fresh Fish
Southbank supplies fresh fish and shellfish to restaurants in London and also runs the Fish Counter at Selfridge in the West End. One of Bidvest’s national network of sustainable food suppliers, Southbank is run by Andrew Wilson who has been in the fish industry for over 30 years. Southbank is certified and associated with:
- The Organic Food Federation
- RSPCA Freedom Food
- Sustainable Restaurant Association
- Marine Stewardship Council
- British Retail Consortium Certified
- Sustainable Fish Cities
In November 2014, Southbank became the first multi species seafood supplier to attain the SRA Approved Supplier Status. www.southbankfreshfish.co.uk
About the Copper Box Arena
Located in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the Copper Box Arena is operated by charitable social enterprise GLL, on behalf of London Legacy Development Corporation. After hosting handball, modern pentathlon fencing and goalball during the 2012 Games, the Copper Box Arena is now one of London’s most versatile and exciting events venues and is open to the public as a fully-equipped, 100-station gym. As part of its London 2012 Legacy commitments, the Copper Box Arena also delivers a diverse and plentiful grassroots sports programme for the local community. In 2015, the Copper Box Arena won the accolade for New Event Space at the national Event Awards.
For more information visit copperboxarena.org.uk or follow us on Twitter, @CopperBoxArena
About the London Aquatics Centre
Located in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the London Aquatics Centre is operated by charitable social enterprise GLL, on behalf of London Legacy Development Corporation. After hosting swimming, diving, synchronised swimming, modern pentathlon and Paralympic swimming during the 2012 Games, the London Aquatics Centre is one of London’s most iconic venues, which has welcomed more than 1.7 million visitors since it opened on the 1st March 2014. As part of its London 2012 Legacy commitments, the London Aquatics Centre now offers affordable public swimming and fitness facilities to all ages and abilities, and hosts a variety of events. The world-class facility is also used as an elite training venue and is the training home of Olympic bronze medallist, Tom Daley, and elite swimmer, Aimee Willmott.
For more information visit www.londonaquaticscentre.org or follow us on Twitter, @AquaticsCentre
About GLL
Established in 1993, GLL is the largest UK-based charitable social enterprise delivering leisure, health and community services. Under the consumer facing brand Better, the organisation operates more than 200 public sport and leisure centres and 57 libraries in partnership with more than 30 local councils, public agencies and sporting organisations. Better leisure facilities enjoy 40 million visitors a year and have more than 650,000 members.
GLL exists to make community services and spaces better for everyone. In practice, that means investing all profits back into providing quality leisure and fitness facilities for the good of the communities where GLL operates. Alongside the organisation’s core leisure and library divisions, GLL runs sport and legacy development, health intervention and education, as well as offering the GLL Sports Foundation, one of the largest independent support programmes for talented young athletes in the UK.
About Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
London’s newest visitor destination, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, is a place unlike any other. Visitors to the Park are able to enjoy beautiful parklands and waterways, world-famous sporting venues, arts and events and spectacular views from the ArcelorMittal Orbit. As a new heart for east London, the Park will also provide new homes, jobs and a cultural and education quarter.
The London Legacy Development Corporation promotes and delivers physical, social, economic and environmental regeneration in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the surrounding area, in particular by maximising the legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
For more information visit QueenElizabethOlympicPark.co.uk, follow us on Twitter @noordinarypark and like us on Facebook facebook.com/QueenElizabethOlympicPark