Carbon Neutral Weddings at Southend Barns

Regenerative farming

Observing the crops on the land surrounding the barns over the last few years, we started to notice that our yields were plateauing because the soils were running out of steam. When we visited Groundswell in 2023 and learned about the practical applications of regenerative farming systems, we made the bold decision to change the whole farm over to such a practice, all its 500 acres.

When we say regenerative, we mean we want to make the soil better again and generate more organic matter in the top layer of the soil. When we discovered that the crops as well as the soil has its own microbiome, similar to what we humans have, we knew that we had to improve soil microbial diversity and richness to create better soil health.

Enhancing our soil quality

We learned that by disturbing the soil as little as possible, keeping the soil covered with crops, using livestock and legumes in the rotation, and using multiple species in one field we could enhance way better soil quality and therefore grow crops that use less artificial nitrogen and do not need any agrochemicals to fight off diseases and pests.

We grow our crops by regularly measuring the sap in the leaves to check if they have the correct balance of micronutrients, in effect their vitamins and minerals, and we adjust any shortages by feeding the plants minimal amounts of the correct vitamins and minerals throughout the growing cycle, to keep them healthy and robust.

After harvest, our regenerative wheat grain, which consist of four different old-fashioned breadmaking varieties, gets delivered to the Wildfarmed flour mill. This flour is super nutritionally dense and tastes nutty and delicious. The flour is distributed to retailers such as Waitrose and M&S and a large selection of restaurants including Franca Manca and of course Roots Catering at Southend Barns.

How your wedding will be carbon neutral

On our journey to Net Zero, we are as a farm and a wedding business always looking to reduce our carbon output so were delighted to find out that by restarting the microbiome of the soil it has the added benefit that it draws carbon from the atmosphere back into the soil. On a farm, there is of course plenty of soil and it can store a great amount of carbon, so a win-win for our new farming system. From our Farm Carbon Toolkit audit we learned that we store a great amount more carbon that we produce, so with that in mind we can assure our wedding couples that when they have a wedding at Southend Barns, their weddings will be carbon neutral.

Going green is of course not just addressed by off-setting the carbon production. In the first instance we aim to reduce the amount of carbon we generate. Every year we are going through a rigorous audit to assess how much carbon the average wedding at Southend Barns produces. We then set ourselves targets on where and how we can reduce this.

Buying local to reduce food miles

Buying locally has been a priority for Roots Catering at Southend Barns, not only do we enjoy supporting local suppliers, it reduces food miles and therefore reliance on fossil fuels. The addition of the allotment next to the barn has enhanced the now very local offer of vegetables, berries and herbs.

We bake all our own focaccia bread with Wildfarmed Flour and do not use any ultra processed food, even our truffle mayonnaise is our own! We have our own beehives and their tasty honey is used in our homemade ice cream found on many of the Roots dessert dishes. Most of our recipe ingredients, whether meat, fish or plant-based are Red Tractor labelled which means they can be traced back through the supply chain to the British farms it came from. Every season we design new dishes that are not only stunning compositions on a plate as well as nutritionally balanced and simply delicious.

We have reduced our use of packaging by moving to filtered and carbonated water in our Roots branded re-fillable glass bottles and by producing our own Hepworth lager, we have drastically reduced beer bottles usage. Any plated food waste is collected weekly by the local council. Even our vegetable peelings get composted and end up back in the allotment.

Reduce your wedding carbon footprint

Since the inception of Southend Barns in 2011, sustainability and the environment have been at the forefront of our decision making. For us it was important that the listed Threshing Barn and the Dairy Barn were converted with highest standard of sustainable materials and methods. Extra attention to insulation details with ‘glaster’ (plaster with recycled glass), and an extensive study to work out the best method for heating the premises, resulted in the investment of a biomass boiler on the farm which heats the polished concrete floors of all the Southend buildings.

We have made significant progress on reducing our electricity usage by installing solar panels and now produce 50kWh of energy during the daytime and are on a continuous replacement plan to LED lighting.

We hope that our focus on environmental responsibility will see a large number of couples turn to the Barns at Southend Farm for their eco-wedding as we foresee that couples-to-be will be encouraged by the positive impact a wedding at Southend Barns will have on their total wedding carbon footprint.

Ready to start your green wedding journey?

Want to make your wedding more eco-friendly and sustainable? Consider carbon neutral weddings by offsetting your wedding’s carbon footprint!

See our Green to Graze offer