Sowing the seeds

The Green Tree Café Staff

Green Tree climbs to success!

The Green Tree Café on the Isle of Bute only opened its doors just over a year ago but has already demonstrated its commitment to healthy eating.

Staff were delighted to embrace the challenges set by the healthyliving award and are celebrating after becoming one of Scotland’s first winners. The café, located in Rothesay’s Moat Centre, set out to make healthy food a priority and has implemented the standards and choice required to provide customers with delicious healthier options.

The Green Tree is popular with the local community and also welcomes tourists, many of whom are pointed in the café’s direction when they enquire after somewhere healthy to eat.

Since opening, the popular eatery has built up a loyal customer base which includes families, young people and pensioners looking for something healthy and different that they have not been able to access on Bute before.

Dino Zavaroni, manager of the Green Tree, said: “We opened the café a year ago and from the beginning, we wanted to offer people something healthier than the usual burgers and chips.

“We saw the award mentioned on a website and when we had a look at what we would have to do we realised that the requirements of the award matched what we were trying to achieve so we decided to go for it.

“Around 85 per cent of our menu is made up of healthier options but that doesn’t mean the food is any less tasty – our customers love the home-made soups and baked potato toppings like vegetable curry.

“We did not have to make many changes to our menu to achieve the healthyliving award, in fact there are only three items on the menu that are not marked as healthy choices.”

“Most of the changes we have made have been quite minor, like using reduced salt and sugar baked beans, but they all add up and the demand from people on the island for healthier options has surprised even us.”

In addition to offering residents of Bute a wide range of healthy options, the café also promotes healthy eating in a variety of other ways. This includes running short cookery courses like Cooking for Kids.

The Green Tree Café bakes its own bread, all of it wholemeal, and even customers who fancy something a bit more indulgent can feel satisfied that the desserts are healthier than normal, with low-sugar cakes and added fruit.

“We are really proud to have achieved the healthyliving award and we feel that this is the best thing that has happened to us since we opened. With the publicity we have received and the work that we are continually doing to promote healthy living we have not really had to advertise and we are becoming more and more popular.

The café’s healthy living ethos is popular with a wide range of diners, from parents keen to feed their children something other than chips and fizzy drinks to older people looking for a healthier cake with their cup of tea.

Dino added: “We believe that it’s very important to offer people the choice of eating healthy foods when they eat out.

“We feel that achieving the healthyliving award has also given our customers greater trust in us as they know that they will get a healthy meal here.”

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issue two:
May 2007
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The healthyliving awardNHS Health Scotland - Scotland's health improvement agencyHealthier Scotland - Scottish GovernmentHealthier Scotland - Scottish Government