Bringing peopleand food together
Food is something we need to thrive and not just for nourishment.
When people come together for celebration or for comfort food plays a big part. That’s why we want you to join us in keeping food where it belongs – in our mouths, bellies and memories. And out of the places where food waste can make problems for us, both today and further down the track.
Our Mission
The Restaurant Association’s mission is to be the bridge between good food and good business so that restaurants or cafes businesses can become great. We’re passionate about our vibrant industry, which is full of interesting, talented and entrepreneurial people…people just like you.
Edge Impact is a full-service global impact consultancy combining science, strategy and storytelling in partnership with motivated leaders, organisations and industries to reimagine sustainability for positive impact.
Our Kai Keeper Goals
Our commitment to assist Aotearoa’s cafes and restaurants address their food waste is drive by the following Kai Keepers goals:
- Contribute towards reducing food waste by 10% from the hospitality sector.
- Contribute towards increasing our knowledge and understanding of the quantity and causes of food waste in New Zealand.
- Contribute towards increasing our knowledge and understanding of the effectiveness of different interventions to reduce food waste.
Meet the Team
RA Governance Team
Marisa Bidois
CEO, Restaurant Association
A staunch advocate for hospitality & raising the industry’s profile, Marisa has extensive experience in programme design and advising Government agencies and has worked in an advisory capacity to Government and on industry leadership groups for 25+ years. Marisa spearheads initiatives like the HospoStart programme. Marisa also led collaboration with MSD to create the RA’s HospoStart & Springboard programmes, receiving a number of accolades for her contributions to the industry.
Mike Egan
National President
Restaurateur / Owner Boulcott St Bistro (co-owner); Burger Liquor, Wellington; Monsoon Poon, Auckland and Wellington
For more than 30 years Mike has owned and managed many iconic NZ hospitality businesses. He currently the National President of the RA, trustee of the Restaurant Association Education Trust and Trustee of the Wellington Culinary Events Trust, operators of Wellington on a Plate
Krishna Botica
National Vice-President
Restaurateur and owner of Café Hanoi; Ghost Street, Auckland
Krishna is co-owner/operator of the Comensa Group. Krishna is one of the most highly respected professionals in NZ hospitality. She has been associated with some of the most loved and successful restaurants in Auckland and has won numerous hospitality accolades. She is National Vice President and also the president of the RA’s Auckland branch.
Steve Logan
National Vice-President
Restaurateur, chef and owner of Logan Brown Restaurant; Liberty; Logan Brown at Bellamy’s, Wellington
Steve has a strong commitment to minimising his businesses impact on the environment, with Logan Brown Enviro-Mark Gold certified. Steve has been on the advisory boards of Conscious Consumers and Wellington on a Plate and former Wellingtonian of the Year.
RA Project Team
Nicola Waldren
General Manager, Restaurant Association
Nicola has over 20 years experience working in leadership, strategy and
people management roles in the not-for-profit sector. She has extensive project-management experience and has been involved in co-designing industry programs and working with Government agencies, including MBIE, DPMC, WorkSafe and MPI.
Sara Beillard-Gosai
Operations Manager, Restaurant Association
As Operations Manager, Sara is responsible for overall management of all aspects of the Association’s training, including the professional development programme and the RA training hub on demand content. She also manages the Hospo Start training programme amongst others run by the Association.
Michael Todd
Marketing Manager,
Restaurant Association
Mike has 20 years’ experience as a chef in a varietyof establishment types in Aotearoa and abroad. In his role as Marketing Manager at RA, Mike is responsible for the Associations communications and marketing, as well as supporting members with their food costing, safety, marketing and more.
Karen Smith
Membership Manager, Restaurant Association
Karen is the national membership team leader for the RA where she oversees and coordinates activities related to our membership community. A passionate ‘foodie’ she has a background in small business ownership and recruitment services.
Edge project team
As a full-service sustainability consultancy, Edge has an extensive network across the entire waste sector, and are a trusted partner to the biggest players in the public and private sector in Australia and New Zealand.
Edge’s work in food waste, behaviour change, and training and development programs means they have a real-world understanding of the importance of contextually relevant behavioural interventions. Edge’s project team brings together skills and expertise across New Zealand and Australia enabling us to understand the importance of building local expertise and applying both global and local knowledge.
David Maucor
David Maucor is a Principal Consultant at Edge. David has over 10 years’ experience in Health, Safety, Environmental and Sustainability management across major industries in New Zealand and France. He has worked on large Public-Private Partnership infrastructure projects in France, the Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Alliance (SCIRT) and City Rail Link in NZ. He is an Infrastructure Sustainability Accredited professional (ISAP) and formally trained in Environmental Management System (ISO14001:2015).
Hannah Elias
Hannah is a Circular Economy Consultant with expertise in material optimisation, strategy development, circular economy advisory, circular procurement, and behaviour change. Hannah has experience with the public, not-for-profit, and private sectors including with ASX20 listed companies. Hannah applies a human-centred systems thinking lens in working across a broad range of materials throughout the value chain with extensive experience in managing and maintaining value from food materials.
Hannah Pennington
Hannah brings over a decade of behaviour change experience working with top-tier corporates and government agencies across the globe. Hannah’s approach recognises that behaviour is a function of both the individual and their environment and uses science to develop interventions that work. Hannah’s work spans health, water, and waste sectors, and her doctoral research focuses on climate resilience and behavioural adaptations.
Aidan Mohapatra
Aidan (Consultant, Circular Economy and Lifecycle Thinking) graduated with a bachelors in Sustainable Innovation (Fashion and Textiles) and has since worked in a range of sustainability and CE projects surrounding fashion & textiles, circular economy implementation, sustainability research, supply chain transparency and built environment. Recent projects include researching, analysing and visualising quantitative data within complex material collection and processing systems for BioPak, as well as conducting waste data analysis and visualisation to produce insights on CE objective implementation for GPT and JLL.
Jaymee Kim
Jaymee has honed her excellent branding and design skills through working predominantly in smaller teams throughout her career. Her ability to get stuck into solving design problems quickly, effortlessly and beautifully makes her a secret weapon on any project. She’s a detail driven, thoughtful creative thinker who can adapt to suit any brief.
More than comfortable thinking big for large scale brands, or carefully crafting the small stuff, Jaymee helps bring a balance to any project she works on.
Jordan Stokes
Jordan is a creative with 15 years of experience working at award-winning agencies of all shapes and sizes in both the UK and Australia. With a focus on branding, art direction and design he has worked with some of the world’s biggest, smallest, most interesting, and most challenging brands.
Always producing outstanding, award-winning creative work. His varied experience influences his approach to briefs; translating ideas into experiences and bringing a brave, thoughtful approach to everything he does. With a true belief in the power of creativity to have a positive impact.
Kai Keepers Steerco
- RA Steerco representative: Marisa Bidois, CEO RA
- Edge Steerco representative: Christian Keel, Business Unit Lead, Circular Economy and Lifecycle Thinking. Reports to Edge Impact CEO
- MFE Steerco representative: Elizabeth Nichols, Ministry for the Environment | Manatu Mo Te Taiao