Joanne Muirhead, the owner of JoJo’s Cafe in downtown Osoyoos, displays the special plastic bins she has purchased to incorporate the Japanese Bokashi composting system to recycle all of the food waste generated at her popular restaurant for the past several weeks. She’s hoping to give away the composted materials to local residents so they can use the material in their home gardens. (Keith Lacey photo)
Joanne Muirhead has a degree in wildlife biology and was the former boss of the Osoyoos Desert Society for a half dozen years. So it’s no surprise she immediately jumped on board when a loyal customer informed her about a progressive method to compost most of the food waste she produces at her successful Osoyoos restaurant.
For the past several weeks, Muirhead, who is the owner of JoJo’s Café on Main Street in downtown Osoyoos, has taken all of her food waste and placed it in air-tight plastic buckets in what is called the Bokashi composting system.
Bokashi is Japanese for “fermented organic matter.” Bokashi composting is a safe, quick, and convenient way to compost in your kitchen, garage, or apartment, using a specific group of microorganisms to anaerobically ferment all food waste – including meat and dairy).
Since the process takes place in a closed system, insects and smell are controlled, making it ideal for urban or business settings, said Muirhead.
The process is very fast, with compost usually ready to be integrated into your soil or garden in around two weeks.
While bokashi has enjoyed great popularity in many parts of the world, it is still relatively unknown in North America, she said.
Longtime JoJo’s customer Richard Walker started up a conversation about bokashi composting last fall and asked Muirhead what she did with her food waste.
“I actually forgot about it, but Richard brought it back up a few weeks ago,” she said. “When I told him I would be very interested, he actually went out and picked up several buckets and the special lids you need and away we went.”
Over the past several weeks, Muirhead has recycled all of her food waste into five-gallon buckets using the bokashi composting method.
“It’s actually cut my costs in half as the truck that used to come to pick up our garbage only has to come half as often,” she said. “We started at the beginning of January and we’ve managed to cut the amount of garbage that has to be brought to the landfill in half, which I’m very pleased with.”
The bokashi composting method “basically pickles the food waste … and when mixed with soil, it breaks down much easier.
“There’s no smell and it recycles food waste that used to end up in the landfill. All of this food waste used to end up in the local landfill except coffee grounds and now it’s all being recycled, so I’m pretty impressed.”
Food items that are normally very hard to compost and break down like bread and cheese are easily broken down using the bokashi method, said Muirhead.
She doesn’t know of any other restaurant in Canada that is recycling food waste using the bokashi system.
“Richard did a lot of research and he doesn’t think there’s another restaurant in the country doing what we’re doing here,” she said. “There are many people who know about it and use it in their homes, but it’s not being used on a large commercial scale and hopefully that’s going to change.”
Because her restaurant produces so much food waste, Muirhead is hoping members of the community will benefit from this program.
“What I would like to do is sell these buckets to local residents so they can use the composted material in their gardens,” she said. “What I’m going to try and do is sell them a bucket for $20 and when they bring it back after they mixed it in their garden, I will refund $15. The other $5 will be used to buy more buckets and lids.
“For $5, people will be able to buy the best composting material they have ever used in their gardens. It’s a total win-win situation.”
Muirhead is also going to contact administration with the Town of Osoyoos and local golf courses to see if they would be able to pick up and use the composting material.
“When the restaurant gets really busy in the spring and summer, we’ll be producing at least one large bucket of compost every day,” she said.
To explain the bokashi system, Muirhead sponsored a public information session last week and will be holding a second session some time in March.
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
