When You Know Better, You Do Better

 

At Raven Place, we truly believe in the saying, “When you know better, you do better.”

 

We don’t pretend to have all the answers, and we certainly don’t claim to be perfect. We’re constantly learning, questioning how we do things and looking for ways to improve. When we discover something that could make Raven Place better, whether it’s in our operations, sustainability practices, food, farming or customer experience, we try to put that knowledge into action.

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We believe small changes can create a ripple effect. One thoughtful decision leads to another, and over time those decisions add up to something much greater.

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Creating a Circular Economy

 

Waste is one of the areas where we’re constantly looking for better solutions.

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At Raven Place, we’ve developed our own small circular economy, finding ways to keep resources in use rather than sending them to waste.

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• Food scraps are diverted to our own chickens, worms or compost.

• Food scraps are fermented, we create a 20L bucket of Kimchi for Limpinwood Layers pasture raised hens.  We beleive with a healthy gut, their beautiful hens who forage on regenerativelky farmed land, are providing us with nutrient dense eggs. Happy hens lay happy eggs!

• Eggshells are crushed and returned to the garden, where they’re used as a natural slug-management tool and added back into the soil as a source of minerals.

• Spent tallow and coffee grounds are repurposed into handmade tallow soaps, including a hardworking “Tradie” or gardener’s soap made with our coffee grounds by Chi at Awa Soap

• With our new food van, we’ve also taken another step forward by moving to home-compostable cups by Compostable Alternatives , bowls and lids, reducing our reliance on conventional takeaway packaging that isn't truly home compostable .

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It’s not about claiming zero waste. It’s about constantly asking, “What could we do with this instead?”

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Solving Problems Differently

 

Working on a farm means there are always new challenges to solve.

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We regularly look closely at how our systems are working and where we can find better, more natural solutions. One area we are proud to have explored and already implemented is biological rodent control, with the aim of reducing our reliance on toxic rodenticides and helping protect wildlife and the wider food chain by installing Owl boxes to eat Rats - see our project here 

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We’ve also had to adapt to unexpected growth. As Raven Place became busier, there was a point where we simply couldn’t keep up with orders. Bringing on a third person allowed us to improve our workflow, meet demand more effectively and give our customers a much better experience.  That soon became 5, until we simply couldn't go any faster without more machines.  We have now purchased a bigger van from Food Trailer King and we are proud to say we are now humming along beautifully.  

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Learning From What We Do

 

Sometimes improvement comes from simply paying attention.

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We made the decision to move cooking our karaage from seed oils to rendered tallow, from noticing I has a niggle in my throat I couldn't get rid of.  I soon noticed it wasn't there on days off.  Kyoko, who works with us used to own Okky, a fish and chip shop where she was prescribed an asthma puffer.  When she noticed I had a niggle and we got chatting about it all, one thing lead to another, I decided to start using tallow.  I no longer had a cough, and Kyoko realised, after selling her business, she too never needed her asthma puffer.  It's pretty scary to think what is in the oils to make us cough like that, and how many people must be experiencing it!  

 

Changing to tallow, the way we cook aligned with our broader approach to using resources thoughtfully and making use of what we have.

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It opened our circular loop further, our collaboration with Awa Soap.

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Always Improving

 

For us, sustainability isn't a finished checklist.

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It’s an ongoing process of noticing, learning, adapting and doing better.

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We’ll make mistakes. We’ll discover better ways of doing things. We’ll change our systems as we learn more.

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And to me, that’s the point.

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Raven Place is a place of provenance, but it’s also a place of constant learning.

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Every small change matters. Every resource we keep in use, every piece of waste we prevent, every better system we introduce and every problem we solve differently contributes to making Raven Place, and the place we live, a little better.