4 - Recognised
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VIERNULVIER Café has documented, active commitments across local sourcing, waste reduction, social engagement and plant-forward cooking. Sourcing is the clearest strength. The café publishes its suppliers by name, and several sit within a few kilometres: the Goedinge market garden in Afsnee sends vegetables into Ghent by boat, and the organic farm Koolmees, the cheese cooperative Het Hinkelspel and the Zwalm seitan maker De Goede Zaak supply much of the rest. The vegetable relationship is a market garden subscription, so the kitchen cooks what is ready that week and the daily suggestions move with it.
On waste, the team joined a smart scales project with Arteveldehogeschool and Foodwin to measure its kitchen residual and organic streams, bakes surplus bread into pudding instead of buying biscuits, has taken plastic bottles and straws off the drinks list, and runs a returnable cup deposit at events. Dairy and cheese come from named organic producers, and Koolmees supplies both dairy and meat.
Social practice is written into the kitchen itself. The team has employed people through social employment schemes for years and takes on work placements with the social enterprise Compaan. Coffee and tea are bought through Oxfam, and guests can pay forward a coffee or a bowl of soup through the Enchanté network. The menu is vegetable led throughout, with the whole small plates section meat free and oat milk poured as standard.
The impact dimensions
Low waste & circular practices✓
Sustainable animal products✓
Twelve named local suppliers published by the café, from a Ghent market garden delivering by boat to organic farms within East Flanders and a house beer brewed in Hainaut.
The café operates a published, named supplier network under its LEF principle (lokaal, ecologisch, fair trade), with an explicit aim to keep the distance between supplier and guest as short as possible. Named producers with verifiable identity and location include Goedinge, an organic CSA market garden in Afsnee that delivers vegetables by boat; Koolmees, a small-scale organic farm in Ichtegem supplying vegetables, fruit, dairy and meat; De Goede Zaak, a seitan producer in Zwalm; Het Hinkelspel, a raw-milk organic cheese cooperative; De Trog, an organic bakery; and Brasserie Dupont in Tourpes, which brews the house beer Triomf.
The café's participation in the city's Kiemkracht food programme and its listing by Gent Fair Trade (run by the City of Ghent with Oxfam) both corroborate the local short-chain sourcing. The action plan records that pantry staples including quinoa and green lentils are bought locally, and that supplier data is shared with other Ghent operators through the city's Culinaire Raad.
Weekly-updated daily suggestions follow the CSA market garden's seasonal availability; printed menus are versioned by season.
The café sources vegetables through Goedinge, a CSA market garden in Afsnee, which delivers whatever is ready in each growing period. This structurally ties the kitchen's supply to the seasonal calendar. The kitchen publishes weekly-updated daily suggestions alongside its fixed card, and its printed menus are versioned by season (current editions dated Voorjaar 26 and 05/26).
Participation in Kiemkracht, the Ghent food programme, includes qualifying dishes built around local short-chain products in season. The action plan records shared cultivation-planning experiments (teeltplannen) with suppliers and other Ghent restaurants, which represents forward seasonal planning across the network rather than a published kitchen-level seasonal policy.
Surplus bread to pudding, homemade lemonades and iced teas, removed PET bottles and straws, returnable cups at events, plus in-progress smart scales measurement and heat-recovery projects.
A formal, published sustainability action plan (2024-2025) with a dedicated Horeca chapter documents waste-reduction practices. Achieved measures include baking surplus bread into pudding to replace industrial biscuits, adopting unpackaged local ginger beer, making homemade lemonades and iced teas, replacing plastic chopping boards with bamboo, and withdrawing straws (paper straws given on request only). Venue-wide: PET bottles removed from the drinks range with the remainder recycled separately; returnable cup deposit system at events; and waste-policy conversations with external caterers and food trucks.
Work in progress includes a 'smart scales' kitchen-residual-stream measurement project with Arteveldehogeschool and Foodwin; filtered tap water examination; and a partnership scope with Bicyclair for organic waste collection by cargo bike. Energy-recovery work addresses heat from the kitchen and cold/freezer cells, and fat separation from kitchen wastewater through the TERTS partnership. The plan's explicit shift is from managing waste growth to reducing waste volume itself.
Dairy from named organic cooperatives and producers; meat partially traced to one named organic farm; fish unevidenced.
Dairy is well evidenced: the drinks menu marks the dairy range organic, with cheese from named producers including Het Hinkelspel (raw-milk organic cheese cooperative), De Zuivelarij in Berlare, and Oude Bastiaensen. Meat sourcing is partially traced: Koolmees, named on the LEF supplier page as a small-scale organic farm, is explicitly described as producing vegetables, fruit, dairy and meat.
Fish carries no provenance evidence: the red chicory salad with smoked salmon makes no MSC or ASC claim. Specific menu meat items (croque monsieur, dried sausage, spaghetti bolognaise) are not individually linked to the named organic farm. The café's broad organic positioning does not itself cover the animal dimension; the score rests on named animal-specific sources only.
Kitchen-team social employment through Compaan; fair-trade coffee and tea; pay-it-forward Enchanté network; diverse hiring practices and accessibility measures.
Social employment within the kitchen team is practised actively, with work placements arranged through the social enterprise Compaan (which also supplies bread) and the public welfare service (OCMW). Aroma VZW cooks in the café kitchen to bring older people together with students. The café is a partner in the Enchanté network, through which guests can pay forward coffee or soup orders for someone who needs them.
Fair pricing through the supply chain is demonstrated: coffee and tea are bought through Oxfam, and the LEF principle explicitly names fair trade as one of its three pillars. Organisational commitments set the context for the kitchen team: 17% of staff (rising to 33% by 2027) have a migration background; 50% of hires come from groups with greater distance to the labour market; biennial paid placements serve interns from minority groups; and burn-out prevention plus healthy staff lunch are provided.
Accessibility measures include step-free entry, automatic doors, and an NFC-tagged menu readable by smartphone for guests with visual impairments.
Entire small plates section meat-free; seven of nine substantial dishes vegetarian; oat milk standard in coffees; plant proteins deliberately sourced.
The entire small plates section is meat-free: soup of the day (vegan, gluten-free), pita with seitan or falafel, and spanakopita. Of the four larger plates, two are meat-free (spaghetti alla puttanesca and bulgur salad) and two contain animal protein. Across nine substantial dishes, seven are vegetarian and four vegan or veganisable. Both pastas carry vegan cheese as a standard alternative.
Plant-forward defaulting extends to drinks service: oat milk is poured standard in every coffee (cow's milk on request only), and the daily soup is always vegan. Plant proteins are deliberately sourced: seitan from De Goede Zaak in Zwalm and locally purchased quinoa and green lentils. The organisation's 2024-2025 action plan records an examination of a move to 100% vegetarian offer and a scope to require external caterers to meet a minimum plant-based share.
Sourcing signals
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Certified organic ingredients
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Direct named-farm sourcing
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Low-impact beverage program
Coffee, tea, dairy, beverages and beers are labelled organic; named suppliers carry EU certification, and the wine list is largely organic and biodynamic.
Twelve named local suppliers published on the LEF page: a Ghent CSA market garden, farms in Ichtegem and Zwalm, cheese cooperatives, brewers and producers across East Flanders. Quinoa and green lentils are sourced locally.
Homemade lemonades, iced teas, dips and soup of the day; surplus bread baked into pudding; minimal industrial processing of organic products.
Coffee and tea sourced through Oxfam, both marked organic.
Natural and biodynamic wine list assembled with Ghent merchant; Oxfam coffee and tea; house beer brewed with Brasserie Dupont; in-house craft sodas and Ghent Kombucha; expanding non-alcoholic range.
Tap water by the glass; beer on draught; PET bottles removed (remainder recycled separately); straws withdrawn (paper on request); returnable cup deposit at events; unpackaged local ginger beer; homemade beverages replace packaged drinks.
