Meet Dan Swenson-Klatt

Before kickstarting Butter Bakery, Dan had extensive experience in a variety of forms of education around the Twin Cities. While serving as an educator for Outward Bound, he developed a deeper passion for sustainability and caring for the Earth. As Dan transitioned to the restaurant space, he knew it was crucial to incorporate the “leave no trace” mentality into his vision. The main avenue for leaving no trace is by reducing waste produced by the cafe and customers. The cafe offers compostable foodware, composts food waste, and repurposes excess food through creative recipes. When the pandemic hit, they realized how little they knew about how much was being wasted outside of the cafe’s four walls. Dan began to ask himself:

“Can we think of ways to reduce as a part of what we’re doing? To reduce the single-use waste activity? We do offer folks the ability to bring things in for reuse, but how about offering it ourselves for folks who aren’t carrying their own container?” 

Dan reiterated the importance of food donations and composting, but also emphasized the need to reduce food waste in the first place. A crucial piece of their reduction strategy is to track the volume of food waste they are creating on a daily basis. From these numbers, they are able to identify where they may be misusing their food and plan better for the future. The next step for the cafe is to expand their capacity for reusable materials for their customers to continue minimizing the creation of waste. While food waste reduction may seem like a small piece of the puzzle, Dan shared why it is important nonetheless: 

“By making a choice this way with food, it is so direct and so daily. It can play into learning how to do more challenging things like transportation and housing. And how to move into other realms of our lives.”

Throughout our conversation, Dan emphasized how important community was when creating Butter Bakery. The residents of the surrounding neighborhood wanted to be more green and were thankful to have a local business that reflected those values. Their current space was made possible through funding on behalf of Beacon, a collaborative that focuses on creating affordable housing for safer communities. Through Beacon, Butter Bakery is able to employ local youth to gain work experience while also learning about sustainability. The restaurant business can be extremely competitive, but environmental undertones create a space that is much more collaborative. Whether it be signage, menus, or conversations at the counter, Butter Bakery is always looking for new ways to educate the public about the importance of protecting our planet. 

For Dan, building community is not just about the people who live there. He went on to explain that:

“Food and people in a space together, building community, is what this industry does best. If we forget that our community includes the Earth itself, we are not serving our community.” 

On top of minimizing food waste, Butter Bakery also has a community garden along the road. The neighborhood organization helped with the brainstorming of this project, and it is cultivated by neighborhood volunteers. In these raised beds, they grow both pollinator plants and a variety of vegetables that are free for the picking. It is while working in the garden that Dan says he has the best conversations. He describes it as “throwing rocks in the water to create ripples.” When it comes to this work, it’s all about making individual connections to build a greater movement. 

This sense of community extends to not only residents, but also other business owners. As someone who has been in this industry for nearly two decades, Dan had insightful advice for those who are getting started in this sphere. In 2006, there weren’t many models for sustainable restaurants to turn to for inspiration. Now that he has the experience, Dan is happy to remain in “teacher mode” to ease the minds of those just starting off. When it comes to transitioning to a more sustainable framework, he says:

“Those things are expensive to build out in the short term but if you commit to the long term they do pay back. We made some adjustments early on to say we’re gonna pay up front because we know if we commit to being here it will pay back. In energy savings, in how we operate as a space, and being more environmentally friendly for ourselves.” 

A big concern is how long it will take to pay back, and how those back-of-house costs can be offset through product pricing. One insight Dan had was as follows:

“If the story is clear about why it costs what it costs, people get it. You have to build in other ways to be affordable. I’m paying a little more for something I believe in, for something I value, for something I can feel good about. If you’re hiding that, it’s harder to convince people that what they just paid makes sense.” 

The Clean Plate Club can help businesses to uplift that story through social media, blog posts, and window decals. When you visit an establishment that is a part of the CPC, you can be assured that you are spending your dollars towards building a stronger movement of sustainable restaurant models.