Why Generation Soil Became a Community Interest Company
- Alex Montgomery
- Sep 18, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 26, 2025
Regenerating Bristol’s Food System Through Soil, Compost and Community
As the summer growing season draws to a close and autumn takes its place, fields and farms begin their winter rest. But here at Generation Soil CIC, we are doing the opposite.
While nature slows down, we are ramping up our efforts to build a regenerative future rooted in soil, food, and community.
With a dedicated team of three, we have evolved from the initiative once known as 50 Ways to Cook into a Community Interest Company (CIC). This shift reflects not just growth, but a deeper commitment to serving people, place, and planet through circular food systems and living soil.
Why We Became a Community Interest Company
A Community Interest Company (CIC) operates like a limited company, but exists to benefit the community rather than shareholders.
For us, this shift was inevitable.
The name 50 Ways to Cook no longer reflected the work we were doing. Our focus had expanded far beyond recipes and kitchens into food waste, composting, soil regeneration, education, and systems change.
Becoming Generation Soil CIC allowed us to formalise that purpose and place community benefit at the heart of everything we do.
Our Community Interest Statement
Our activities nurture the health and wellbeing of people and the natural environment across Bristol.
We do this through education, services, and hands-on projects that reconnect food waste back to soil, and soil back to people.
Our work spans:
Our Vision: A Truly Circular Food System
Our mission is simple but ambitious.
We exist to help build a circular food system, where food waste is not wasted, nutrients are returned to the land, and soil is treated as a living foundation rather than an extractive resource.
We continue to run our circular food education workshops at our food forest market garden, and beyond, exploring:
Meal planning and food waste reduction
Regenerating soil health
Growing fresh food locally
And this is only the beginning. New projects are launching soon.
Regenerating the Environment Starts With Soil
Over the years, we have explored every layer of the food system, from cooking and waste reduction to growing food.
Today, our work centres on the foundation beneath it all: soil.
Healthy, living soil is essential for:
Nutritious food
Biodiversity
Climate resilience
Water regulation
Yet soil health is under threat. Intensive farming, chemical inputs, and poor waste management have depleted soil biology across the UK.
That is where our work comes in.
The Bristol Living Compost Project
A Regenerative Alternative to Waste
Sustainability and recycling are no longer enough.
To respond meaningfully to the climate crisis, we need circular and regenerative solutions.
Our Bristol Living Compost Project offers a zero waste-to-landfill food waste collection service for households and businesses across Bristol.
Here is how it works:
We collect your food waste
It is processed at our hyper-local composting site
It is transformed into living compost rich in microbes and nutrients
The compost is returned to participants or local growing spaces
This closes the loop between kitchens, communities, and soil.
The Scale of the Problem
In the UK, around 10 million tonnes of food waste are thrown away every year after leaving farms.
Only 1.8 million tonnes are recycled.
The rest ends up in landfill, releasing methane and carbon dioxide and contributing roughly 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
Even worse, those nutrients are permanently lost.
Our Three-Stage Composting Process
At Generation Soil, we use a three-stage composting system designed to work with biology, not against it.
1. Fermentation
We use the bokashi process, which utilises beneficial microorganisms, including lactic acid bacteria, to stabilise food waste and preserve nutrients.
2. Composting
The fermented material is blended with woodchip to create our biologically balanced living compost.
3. Maturation and Redistribution
Once mature, the compost is returned to members or applied to local growing spaces, restoring soil organic matter and biology.
Why Composting With Generation Soil Matters
Our approach delivers benefits far beyond waste reduction:
Increased soil organic matter
Improved soil structure and water retention
Reduced reliance on fossil fuel-derived fertilisers
Lower methane emissions
Restoration of key nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium
This is compost as regeneration, not disposal.
Join the Regenerative Movement
Whether you are a household, business, grower, or community organisation, Generation Soil CIC offers a practical way to be part of the solution.
By joining our food waste collection service or attending our workshops, or volunteering at our food forest in Bristol, you are actively helping to:
Restore soil health
Reduce emissions
Build a circular food system in Bristol
The Road Ahead
As the seasons change, so does the opportunity.
From composting and education to research and community engagement, our work is rooted in one belief:
Healthy soil leads to healthier people, communities, and ecosystems.
The soil does not shout for attention.
But it holds everything together.
Let’s start listening.
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