An award winning Mid Wales country house hotel will be proudly flying the flag for Wales at this summer’s ‘Oscars’ for the UK’s hospitality industry.
Llangoed Hall at Llyswen, near Brecon is one of only two Welsh finalists shortlisted for the 35th annual Catey Awards organised by The Caterer magazine.
The hotel is competing against three rivals – Bartlett Mitchell, Fairmont St Andrews and The University of Manchester – for the Sustainable Business Award, sponsored by Lightspeed. The winners will be revealed at a glittering event at London’s Grosvenor House on July 3.
The Cateys recognise the sector’s strongest performers, latest emerging brands and highest flyers as determined by the industry itself.
It’s the third time in four years that Llangoed Hall has been shortlisted for the Sustainable Hotel of the Year at theCatey Awards, having been runner-up three times.
“It’s a great honour to be flying the flag for Wales at The Cateys, which recognise the very best in the hospitality industry,” said Llangoed Hall’s managing director Calum Milne.
“The team at Llangoed Halls is delighted that our sustainability policy has again been recognised and it shows the impact a small hotel in Mid Wales can make on the environment.
“Llangoed Hall embraces its environmental responsibility and is wholly committed to working towards a sustainable future.”
Llangoed Hall, which has a five-star grading from Visit Wales and AA four red stars and three rosettes, is no stranger to sustainability awards. The hotel won the Excellence in Environmental Management Award at last year’s annual Powys Business Awards and the Best for Green Practises accolade at the 2016 Condé Nast Johansens Awards for Excellence.
The hotel’s mission is to preserve and protect its beautiful, unspoilt environment for future generations of customers, A sustainability policy aims to make the hotel more environmentally friendly and is fully embedded into its ethos and culture.
A L.E.T.S Go Green campaign was launched in 2012 – LETS stands for: Llangoed Environment Team for Sustainability. The team, comprising a member from every department, considers and implements ways to make the hotel more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
The hotel’s garden supplies chefs with 95 per cent of the vegetables, herbs and fruit used on its summer menus and 45 per cent in the winter. In addition, it owns free range chickens and ducks which provide guests with a choice of fresh eggs for breakfast and produces its own honey thanks to beehives in specially created flower meadows.
Beef and lamb are sourced within five miles of the hotel. By producing so many vegetables, fruit and herbs in the gardens, the business has saved £10,000 a year.
Inside the hotel, energy-saving light bulbs and timers on light fittings have been introduced, cooking oil is recycled for bio-fuels and toilets use 50 per cent less water than the average lavatory. Rooms have energy-saving hairdryers and motion sensor taps.
Rainwater is harvested to water plants and fill the duck pool and the hotel sells 4,000 plants a year from garden cuttings. Since 2012, the hotel has reduced the amount of energy consumed by 31 per cent per customer, equating to nearly 346 tonnes of CO2 a year and water consumption has reduced by 118,000 litres a year through a range of measures.
Llangoed Hall buys local wherever possible, asks suppliers to use minimum packaging and to take back and re-use packaging if hygienically possible to do so and uses tea and coffee certified by the Rain Forest Alliance and Fair Trade organisations.
To compensate for air miles, Llangoed Hall plants a tree in the grounds to compensate for the carbon footprint of each customer that has flown to Wales to stay at the hotel.
