First famed for his incredible upcycled floral arrangements that graced Melbourne’s best restaurants in the early 2000s, the sustainability activist and artist went on to create Australia’s first waste-free restaurant Silo in Melbourne in 2012, which then became Brothl, and was behind Perth’s Greenhouse (which, incidentally, launched a young chef Matt Stone who is now running a similarly no-waste kitchen out in the Yarra Valley at Oakridge).

Maggie Beer says Joost is a pioneer, a trailblazing visionary who has helped the conversation around sustainability issues in restaurants become the mainstream topic that it is today.

She says he is such a big part of what we’re all talking about these days but that he was talking about it as a lone voice all those years ago.

“He’s been talking about this stuff for years. I first came across Joost at Greenhouse in Perth. Every time I went there, it was a revelation. The way they had the compost for people to take away at the door, the wall of green of course, but every bit of food was so amazingly organic,” she says.

“Then of course, Brothl, I loved that. The way he created it, the simplicity of the food, the ingredients they were making them from, the compost out the back in the laneway, turning it over in 24 hours.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Byq6DgnF7Xv/?utm_source=ig_embed

“Who else would have that creativity, ingenuity and drive to make such change, really? It’s that combination — he’s quixotic as well, there’s the unexpected element of fun, always. He’s a trailblazer.”

Maggie says if there was one message of Joost’s she’d like to see adopted broadly it would be a waste-first education for kids — for them to learn about composting, then growing, then cooking.

“Why so much is wasted is that people don’t know how to cook, they don’t see the benefit in what they have in their fridge, they don’t have that confidence, and throw food out. Just having kids composting, having them understand growing and where their food comes from, and being able to cook themselves, if that could happen for every child in Australia — do you see where the world, where our country can go?”

Joost Bakker was the recipient of the Maggie Beer Award for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Food in the 2019 delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards.