Garden Cake Kitchen is a micro bakery run out of Rose Lawrence’s home kitchen in Taranaki. Rose offers delicious natural cakes and tarts, enhanced with fresh or dried flowers, foliage and berries.
Rose recently took part in the Your Footprint, your Future workshop series, run by the Sustainable Business Network in partnership with Venture Taranaki. The six-month programme was based around the Climate Action Toolbox and helped Rose identify action areas where she could significantly reduce emissions.
Rose noted that her imported ingredients, particularly the flowers used as toppings for her cakes, were a key emissions hotspot.
She has since developed relationships with local flower producers, resulting in reduced transport emissions and freight costs. Buying local has also identified a way to reduce waste, with the bi-product of these flower farms often being flowers with shorter stems. Although undesirable for florists, they are perfect for cake-toppings!
“There are so many benefits to going local,” says Rose Lawrence, Owner. “Aside from the obvious emissions reduction and cost savings, there is increased transparency and the feel-good factor from supporting small businesses around you.”
Rose is committed to taking further climate action and is exploring ways she can improve her packaging and cut down on waste. She is currently in the process of completing a full carbon measurement which will help to inform these future action areas.
