Elliott Van de Velde, Entropy

Elliott Van de Velde, chef and co-founder of Entropy, Brussels, what’s currently growing in your garden?

– We have 200 square meters of garden close to our restaurant, where we grow biodynamic vegetables. Now is the most amazing time of the year! Everything grows super-fast, so we need to preserve it for the winter season. We also have a lot of school children who come and visit our garden; we really like to show them how it’s working.

Your restaurant is a little different – it’s inside an association.

– Yes, Entropy is a non-commercial restaurant that exists to take care of the association, the Hearth Project, that feeds over 800 people per week. We do this while fighting against waste. All surplus that our producers have in their gardens is used, which also creates a new source of income for them. We can always find a solution.

How do you work with food waste in general?

– Entropy is an up-cycling restaurant. During the past three years I have recuperated more than 500 tons of produce from other suppliers, that would otherwise have gone to waste. I doubt it’s possible to further reduce our kitchen waste, but we can help others do the same thing. We are doing a lot of workshops with very big companies and with the EU-commission to create solutions to their problems – and another way of thinking.

Photo: Elliott JulienIvens