Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) has announced that sManaging Director Mark Linehan has stepped down, and Andrew Stephen has become the new CEO.
Linehan, in his five and a half years at the helm, has helped grow the organisation from a just over 50 sites, to more than 6,000. Sustainability climbed up the agenda for the whole hospitality sector during this period and the SRA extended its influence way beyond traditional restaurants, as workplace, school and university caterers joined pubs, cafés, an airline and a train operator amongst its membership.
Andrew Stephen joins the SRA with more than a decade of experience in communications and sustainability. Most recently, he was a director at 2degrees, the world’s largest platform for sustainable business, helping major food businesses and retailers overcome supply chain challenges. Prior to that, he worked for film production companies, social enterprises, and advertising agencies specialising in opening up the sustainability conversation to new audiences and new markets.
Stephen said, “The Sustainable Restaurant Association has already in its short history played a hugely significant role in guiding the UK hospitality industry along a progressive path to the point where it’s on the verge of being a world leader.
“While the challenges are greater than ever before, more people want to eat genuinely ‘good’ food when they dine out. It’s our job to make sense of the complicated and complex issues, frame the debates and present solutions for chefs, restaurateurs and the public, so that together we can make the progressive, positive changes needed. Restaurants and food service businesses can do so much more than just feed people and are absolutely key to creating solutions to the challenges we face.”
He added, “From 2017, we’re planning a lot more impact and we will be working flat out to help organise the issues, challenges and solutions for consumers and foodservice businesses, providing the platform for a progressive, ongoing conversation between the hospitality sector and the Great British dining public.”