Coffee & Burger Afloat Sustainability Story

A floating café and icon on the Lake Dunstan Trail

You’re cycling along the Lake Dunstan Trail between Cromwell and Clyde, approaching the halfway point just before the largest climb along the trail at the Cairnmuir Ladder, and there is the smell of freshly brewed coffee and crispy bacon on the breeze. Can this be true – or is it a mirage?

It is in fact, Coffee and Burger Afloat – the brain child of Richard and Jolanda Foale who have created a business with a real focus on sustainability and doing good for the environment whilst also delivering a unique and authentic visitor experience.

This is New Zealand’s first remote floating café and burger bar – only accessible by bike, foot or boat. It’s so unexpected to be able to enjoy a barista coffee or an award-winning burger in a location like this that you might expect there would be concerns around the environmental impacts of the business. However, for Richard and Jolanda, ensuring their footprint on the environment is minimised is at the foundation of their operation.

The coffee machine, grinder, fridges and freezers operate on solar power. Recycling is fundamental with the takeaway cups and lids 100% paper, free from PLA and plastic and biodegradable. The local worm farm (Cromwell Wormworx) makes compost out of cups and lids.

For every coffee sold they donate a portion to the Southern Lakes Trail Trust for track maintenance including plantings through the Mokihi Trust. You will see some of those plantings in several locations along the trail – including in the gully near the boat.

Using local producers and ingredients is another commitment in reducing food miles. The freshly roasted coffee beans are from Grid Coffee Roasters in Dunedin. The Kitchen Garden in Bannockburn provides their ‘home’ style baked goods and relishes. They also incorporate used coffee grinds back into their soil of their kitchen garden as fertiliser. The Fridge Butcher & Delicatessen in Cromwell provides the meat for burgers and Gertz Larder the pinot pickled onions. Of course, given the number of orchards in the area, fruit sauces and chutneys also feature on the menu. Locally made fruit juice from Benjer juices are exceptionally well received, particularly on the hot days.

And when the time comes for their boats to move, the shoreline remains with no sign of the business ever having been there. Few businesses could do the same. Their ingenuity is to be congratulated for developing a truly unique visitor experience alongside celebrating, protecting, restoring and enhancing New Zealand’s natural environment.