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Food<br />
Conscious Living<br />
Co., Cherry Hinton’s health conscious café, has been going from strength to<br />
strength since its opening earlier this year, but we were keen to find out even<br />
more about their inspiration and journey so far<br />
Inspired by ‘conscious living’, Co. has built its ethos entirely around<br />
being aware of one’s existence and the impact we can have on<br />
our environment and wellbeing. We caught up with owner, Aksara<br />
Inamdar, to find out more about this fascinating concept.<br />
Tell us a little more about yourself and what you mean by<br />
‘conscious living’.<br />
It quite literally means living consciously and being aware of your<br />
existence, thoughts and surroundings. Today, more people than ever<br />
are struggling with mental and physical illnesses and many of these<br />
occur due to the daily stress of ‘life’. With the cost of living rising and<br />
resources such as healthcare and finances reducing, we have even<br />
more reason to suffer from stress, anxiety, depression and more.<br />
Having experienced symptoms of this, like many others, I decided<br />
it was time to try and make a positive change. I realised you have<br />
to make a conscious effort to take into consideration what is really<br />
important to you and to take a little more care of yourself by taking<br />
simple small steps such as eating better, introducing some form of<br />
exercise into your weekly routine, sleeping better and participating in<br />
some sort of wellbeing activity such as yoga.<br />
How does all of this contribute to your ethos at Co.?<br />
The Co. ethos is based entirely upon living consciously and being<br />
mindful of all aspects of your existence. I was able to build the<br />
concept of Co. based on three things which are very important to<br />
me and what I wanted the brand to stand for; Conserve, Connect<br />
and Consume. For anyone that’s seen our logo, you will notice<br />
alongside our tagline ‘conscious living’ you can also find these three<br />
words. They’re all ‘co’ words, hence the name!<br />
Conserve stands for the conservation of everything that surrounds<br />
us; our people, our environment, our farmers and our produce. We<br />
are always thinking about our carbon footprint and therefore choose<br />
to work with local suppliers to offer our customers the best of what<br />
is available locally. We stock local beers from the likes of Black Bar,<br />
Old Friends Brewery, Milton Brewery, Three Blind Mice in Ely, and<br />
cider and juices from Watergull Orchards. Our artisan breads and<br />
cakes come from Norfolk St Bakery and the Allotment Café, in<br />
addition to newbie on the block Raw & Delicious who makes baked<br />
goods free from all the ‘nasties’: dairy, gluten and refined sugar.<br />
Whatever we don’t stock from local producers, we make ourselves.<br />
Written by Sammi Nice<br />
Photography: Andy Wright<br />
Regarding the conservation aspect, we have taken sustainability into<br />
consideration in every aspect of the business. We only use recyclable<br />
or recycled packaging and we will be encouraging this even further<br />
once our loyalty system kicks off in the new year. This will enable<br />
us to reward our customers with points every time they return a<br />
reusable item such as a jar or bottle. These points can be used as<br />
currency. We use our coffee waste as compost and our food waste<br />
is next to nothing, which means that we will very shortly be hitting<br />
our goal of becoming zero waste. Whatever food waste we do have<br />
is collected for compost. Even our decor was upcycled from Rhode<br />
Island and the tables in our function room are made from old doors!<br />
Connect stands for connecting with our inner selves and the people<br />
around us such as our customers, our suppliers, our producers, our<br />
friends and also those unknown strangers! This is the inspiration<br />
behind our workshops, yoga classes, collaborations and soon to<br />
come pop ups and supper clubs. Co. is a place where people can<br />
come to sit back, relax, meet a friend, try something new and meet<br />
someone new.<br />
Consume stands for consumption and thinking about the way<br />
we consume, what we consume and how we consume. We are<br />
encouraging our customers to shop local, support local independent<br />
businesses, and adopt a healthy and informative approach to eating,<br />
making decisions which help prevent waste and encourage people to<br />
use what they have.<br />
18<br />
<strong>Velvet</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> | <strong>November</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
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