Joris Bijdendijk, Wils

Joris Bijdendijk, executive chef at Wils in Amsterdam, what do you do to become more sustainable?

• Research and education are key. But in the restaurant, we don’t have time to do all the suitability work that we wish to. Therefore, besides running a restaurant, we also run Low Food. It’s a foundation with a sole purpose – to bring sustainability and inclusion into Dutch gastronomy.

How do you incorporate that into Wils?

• As we do research, we allow the staff who are interested in the topic to take part. Low food facilitates deeper understanding through data and brings knowledge and awareness to our employees.

To what extent do you measure your operations? 

• We measure everything; what we do, we want to be data-driven. It’s not about what we think but what we measure. 95 percent of our impact is in the choice of products. Growing your own pigs in your own garden is not efficient and sustainable for everyone. Sometimes, the romantic solutions aren’t the most sustainable. We are not saying we are the best, but we are transparent about our results. Every year, we strive to become 5 percent better.