Do you know your business case for managing food waste? According to a recent report from the World Research Institute and the Waste and Resources Action Programme, restaurants can earn $7 for every dollar they spend on food waste management. AgFunder reports that the research behind the study assessed the food waste management practices of more than 100 restaurants in 12 countries, including restaurants ranging from international quick-service brands to upscale, sit-down restaurants. The participating restaurants tried a “target, measure, act” approach to food waste, which involved measuring the food being wasted to identify the biggest pain points, then engaging staff, reassessing inventory and purchasing practices, reducing overproduction and repurposing excess food. Participating restaurants reduced food waste by 26 percent on average, and more than 75 percent of the restaurants had earned back the investment they made to cut food waste in the first year alone.
Your sustainability efforts could soon be visible front and center for people considering your restaurant for their next meal. Yelp just unveiled its Green Practices Initiative in an effort to help consumers understand how restaurants approach sustainability. Yelp reviewers will now be asked if in their experience a restaurant uses plastic bags, utensils or straws, compostable takeout containers, and whether or not the restaurant offers a discount to guests who bring their own beverage containers. The results won’t be visible immediately but will gradually build a trove of data that will eventually be included in Yelp’s restaurant reviews.
There are ample financial incentives for restaurant operators to make their existing business practices more environmentally friendly — even if you don’t consider that consumers are loyal to such businesses. If you’re interested in either learning more about green business practices or about improving upon your existing efforts, check out this survey from the Green Restaurant Association. It asks a series of questions about your restaurant’s current practices when it comes to energy use, water efficiency, chemicals and pollution, sustainable food, and use of reusable and disposable products. Depending on your answers, you will be prompted with details about how adopting certain practices could help your bottom line, as well as what specific appliances, products, brands and other resources can help you operate more efficiently in various capacities. Your answers can also give you a baseline assessment to help you see what efforts might help you become a Certified Green restaurant if you’re seeking an industry designation.
If you’re taking steps to reduce your restaurant’s waste and make your packaging more environmentally friendly, why not share the benefits with your guests? A study from Cone Communications about corporate social responsibility found that 88 percent of consumers are more likely to be loyal to a company that supports social or environmental issues. Similar proportions of guests say they trust such companies and would buy a product from them if given an opportunity. Upserve suggests some tips for building a positive image around your sustainability efforts, including offering a discount on the dishes you offer that have the lightest environmental impact (try assessing your ingredients with an eye toward how local they are or how much water or pesticides were used to grow them). If a guest brings his own container to pack up leftovers, offer a small discount or promotion. You can even host a recycling event, encouraging guests to drop off electronics or less-easily-recycled items and then recycling those items on their behalf. If you need to increase your operation’s sustainability efforts before you promote what you’re doing, QSR Magazine suggests you make space behind your restaurant for compost and recycling bins in addition to trash bins, as well as a cardboard baler that will allow you to condense the footprint of your boxes and have them collected at one time. Then work with your supplier to improve upon your packaging. Order compostable or biodegradable packaging and utensils, or if you have to order plastic, aim for only plastic No. 1 items, which are the most frequently recycled plastics. Finally, understand what can and cannot be recycled by your provider. You may be overlooking items —lightbulbs, batteries and printed menus, to name a few — that are recyclable.
Something is lurking in your trash. If you’re lucky, it’s money: Many foodservice operators who have changed their approach to trash disposal have minimized waste when it comes to both food and finances. (There’s a lot of waste to reduce: According to a 2014 study by the Food Waste Reduction Alliance, more than 84 percent of unused food in American restaurants is thrown away — and while those figures have likely improved in the past few years, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.) Restaurantowner.com suggests several tips to help operators take charge of their trash. First, remove trash bins from the kitchen — even as a temporary experiment — and give each employee a clear, labeled bin to be filled with food scraps or trimmings they want to discard during food prep. Following the shift, have a manager inspect the contents of each box for usable product. If any is found, the manager can provide on-the-spot training to that employee to make sure usable product isn’t wasted in the future. Inspecting bins in the dish room can be helpful too: Make sure china, silverware and other expensive tableware aren’t getting damaged or accidentally tossed out. Finally, monitor your dumpster, which can provide easy cover for a dishonest employee. It’s a common practice in the industry for someone looking to steal a case of wine to hide it in the dumpster only to retrieve it later. Having a manager approve who takes out the trash and when, or even monitor the dumpster via video, can help protect your business from those losses. (Want to talk trash? Contact Team Four about how your operation can save on trash disposal.)
It’s pretty difficult to eliminate plastic from a restaurant, but you can go further than ridding your business of plastic straws — and it will say a lot to your guests about your values. If you’re looking for a place to start, QSR Magazine suggests you first conduct an audit of your waste. Assess which items are piling up over a period of time — e.g. packaging from suppliers, disposable coffee cup lids, plastic utensils, single-use bottles. Then engage your team in brainstorming ways you can reduce, reuse or recycle your biggest waste generators. Can you eliminate your single-use plastic? How can you swap out disposable containers for ones that are either made from more eco-friendly materials or can be cleaned and used repeatedly? If you discard many types of plastic, is your team aware of how to separate those items to avoid contaminating them during recycling? The Plastic Pollution Coalition can provide tips and guidance to help your restaurant improve its practices. If you need an example to inspire you to take the next step, The Coup in Calgary, Canada is one model. Green Matters reports that the environmentally conscious efforts of its co-owners are woven through the entire operation: They replant trees through Tree Canada to offset their paper waste, recycle and compost everything possible, use BPA- and phenol-free-vitamin-C transfer paper for receipts, use metal and compostable straws, purchase with minimal packaging, and even decorate with repurposed or refinished furniture, countertops and decking.
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