Pure Joy Catering is a local, full-service catering company specializing primarily in weddings. The company has received a handful of venerable awards over the past few years for their premium service. In addition to being a predominant catering company in the tri-county area, they are also one of the most eco-friendly. The size of their operation - at times feeding up to 1000 people a week - makes it all the more impressive that Pure Joy Catering is so strongly committed to protecting the environment. Eco-Conscious Efforts in the Commercial Kitchen "We keep as much out of the landfill as possible," says Lynette La Mere, Proprietor and Executive Chef, "We currently recycle 70% of our our trash, and compost roughly 20% of all our kitchen detritus, leaving only 10% of our refuse every week as actual trash... We were just awarded a "Green Star" from the City of Santa Barbara!" “The kitchen and office staff has really taken to composting, it just feels good and you can see the difference – no more big trash dumpster, we have one small trash receptacle and huge recycling & composting containers. It saves the company money and we are doing our part” Another important element of Pure Joy's green efforts is their dedication to locally-sourced products. "Every week begins at Farmer's Market," La Mere tells Santa Barbara Green, "We use only seasonal hand-picked ingredients, and whenever possible, we make it a point to source them through purveyors who offer organic, local, and sustainably farmed foods." With such a large weekly food demand, it’s great for the local farming economy to have Pure Joy bringing reliably large and year-round business to the Santa Barbara Farmer's Markets. Pure Joy's menus and decorative florals are seasonal and locally sourced as well. Recently, their new building on Haley Street had the entire lighting system upgraded to be more energy efficient, new icynene insulation greatly reduced heating & cooling needs too. Employees in the office are offered daily filtered water in an effort to renounce plastic water bottles completely there and we have a bike rack for employees. Also in the office, Pure Joy has recently implemented ecofont to a large portion of their printed material, which cuts ink use by 20%. While on location car pooling is encouraged and facilitated, disposables have been eliminated and when it comes to dish and glassware, they offer a vast selection of reusable, recyclable, and compostable alternatives (see BeGreen Packaging). Lastly, the owner's affinity for turtles exhorts some unusual animal philanthropy from Pure Joy. "All our raw green waste goes to feed three giant Sulcata turtles adopted from the zoo that weigh about 80 pounds each!" reports La Mere. Awards and Media Attention Apart from recently receiving a "Green Star" from the city of Santa Barbara, Pure Joy Catering's award winning team was voted Best (Full Service) Caterer by the Reader's of the News Press once again this year in 2010. They were voted the Number One Wedding Planners by readers of the Independent and Best Caterer in Central California the last 2 years by brides on the Knot "Best Of". 2010 Independent voters chose Pure Joy as Santa Barbara's Number One Caterer again, and they received the Bride's Choice Award from (no the) WeddingWire as well. Lynette La Mere is a recipient of the Top 50 Woman in Business Award. Pure Joy was also named one of the top 25 Woman Owned Businesses here in the Tri County Area and quoted in the Fall issue of Bride's Magazine on trends for weddings in 2011. Current articles by Executive Chef Lynette La Mere in Food & Home Magazine: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII. Office Location: 111 East Haley Street Santa Barbara, CA, 93101 (Open Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm) Websites: Contact: 805-963-5766 events@purejoycatering.com |