In the foodservice business, there’s a lot more that goes into long-term success than just cooking up good meals and selling them for a profit. Other ingredients include hiring good people and developing them well, providing good service and marketing your brand in the community.
It also includes sustainable practices. Is your foodservice business efficient with the resources it uses, or do many of them go to waste? Like it or not, this is a fundamental question that may weigh heavily on the future of your business. Inefficiency is a killer in several different ways. Not only is it directly tied to financial losses, but it can bring about issues with regulatory compliance and also seriously damage your business’ reputation.
“Is your foodservice business efficient with the resources it uses?”
Fortunately, there are ways to do better. The following is a look at what today’s companies are doing to improve sustainability, as well as how they could do even better:
Energy strategies are a top priority
One of the keys to sustainability in the restaurant business is managing energy effectively. The typical restaurant kitchen requires running countless appliances on a daily basis, all of which consume a great deal of power. It’s important, therefore, to invest in energy-smart machines.
There are plenty of other ways to improve energy management. An additional option is to invest in new sources of power, such as solar panels, that will reduce consumption and even offer tax credits in many cases. Lighting fixtures are also a key area of improvement, as it’s possible to cut energy use by 75 percent by using compact fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescent ones.
Waste management also factors in
It’s also crucial to consider the significant amount of waste that restaurants produce every day. Meals go uneaten, cooking oil is burned through and wrappers and packages get opened and discarded. All of this refuse adds up, and handling it responsibly is an important part of running a sustainable business.
Waste management is a key aspect of sustainability.
There are constructive steps that managers can take, though. For example, used oil can be recycled and handed off to organizations that will repurpose it for other projects. A lot of garbage can be composted rather than packed into dumpsters and piled into landfills. There are always opportunities to use more compostable and recyclable packaging. The list goes on.
What about water? Consider this…
Another area where foodservice business leaders can make tangible improvements is with water consumption. By considering the benefits that the water heater replacement process has to offer, businesses have the potential to create some serious savings.
There’s a great deal of upside to installing a new commercial tankless water heater at your establishment. Conventional heaters have several shortcomings when it comes to efficiency, including standby losses (when water loses its heat during periods of downtime) and cycling losses (which occur as water circulates through tanks and pipes). Tankless heaters help eliminate these issues, making it far easier to conserve water and energy, thus making for a more sustainable and profitable business.
Waste management is a key aspect of sustainability.
