In an SA first, Eat Out and Woolworths are recognising restaurants that are implementing environmentally and socially responsible practices with the inaugural Eat Out Woolworths Sustainability Award. The winning restaurant will be announced on 20 November at the Eat Out Mercedes-Benz Restaurant Awards.

“This is an award I have wanted to introduce for a long time,” said Abigail Donnelly. “We recognise that achieving sustainability is an ongoing process, but we want to showcase restaurants that are making great strides to promote good practices.” These practices include responsible sourcing and menu design, responsible farming, ethical treatment and slaughter of animals, fair labour practices, community impact, and energy, water and waste management.

Eat Out worked with several partners to develop robust criteria for evaluating restaurants for this award. Eat Out chief judge Abigail Donnelly worked with Pavitray Pillay of WWF-SASSI, Lynsay Sampson of Fairtrade South Africa, Sonia Mountford of Eategrity and Karen Welter of Longtable Project to judge the entries, which were submitted after a call for entries in June.

Who will win the 2016 Eat Out Woolworths Sustainability Award? Follow Eat Out on Twitter and sign up to the Eat Out newsletter to be the first to know on the night.