A sustainable supply chain works to incorporate products and services that reduce environmental impact and provide improved health benefits and/or positive social impacts as a result of the preparation and/or delivery of the meal. From advances in packaging that minimize volume and weight to efficient routing and on-time delivery of food, there are numerous activities that yield beneficial results. In this case, by reducing the volume of packing materials, food can be transported more efficiently on trucks and by forklifts within warehouses. Additionally, less solid waste is produced. With such changes, both environmental and economic benefits are realized.
A food service provider may be limited by the preferences and priorities of the customer or client, thereby restricting the implementation of even the best ideas. At the same time, many customers and clients take leadership positions on certain sustainable initiatives because they believe it is the right thing to do, they recognize the public relations benefits or see the direct financial benefits. In both circumstances, the food service manager is positioned to provide recommendations to improve sustainable practices.
Ultimately, the food service provider is responsible for understanding sustainable food service attributes, assessing the viability of both best practices and innovative ideas, and aligning with customer and client sustainability goals to support the customers and community he or she serves.
In developing a sustainable procurement plan, conduct a market assessment by considering consumer demand, product availability, food safety requirements, cost and logistics. When focusing specifically on sourcing a particular product, partner with local distributors and suppliers to determine product availability. If certain products are more expensive than others, determine if an additional cost is acceptable, and if so, how much.
Over time, build a responsible procurement plan, adjusting to meet changing factors. After successes have been achieved with a few items, add a few more. By taking steps, it may be possible to responsibly procure cage-free eggs, organic produce, sustainable sea-food, environmentally preferable disposables and more.
Local Purchasing
Transportation within the food service supply chain includes the movement of food from the location it was grown or produced to the distributor, and then from the distributor to the customer. Decisions to purchase locally sourced food yield multiple benefits, including support of local economies, reduced delivery time, cost, reduced environmental impact due to vehicle emissions for food transport, and reduced potential of food spoilage or damage during transportation.
Food Safety
Before incorporating any new vendors or suppliers into the supply chain, ensure that the company and products are fully compliant with all food safety requirements. Information must be gathered and documented across the entire supply chain, including the handling, packaging, production, preparation and storage of food. For example, food safety cannot be compromised or placed at a lower priority than procuring locally sourced goods.
Awareness of food safety practices is especially important when handling meats, seafood, eggs and produce, as these have stricter food safety guidelines than other foods. When sourcing local and organic produce from smaller farms, be sure to ask about sanitation, pest control practices and potable water testing practices.
All growers, regardless of size, should follow Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), and manufacturers should follow Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).
A local audit verification program for compliance with GAP and GMP for fruits and vegetables should be conducted regularly.
Consumer Disposable Products
The procurement of all support products, such as napkins and other disposable products, should be assessed for sustainable options. Polystyrene products and waxed cardboard are examples of products that should be avoided when better environmental choices are available. Examples of environmentally preferable products include, but are not limited to, those that contain recycled content (pre- and post-consumer content), and renewable materials or are compostable.
When evaluating products using post-consumer content, it is important to recognize that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has strict regulations that limit the use of post-consumer content in containers that carry food products.
Disposable items that are used in the food service environment but are not in direct contact with food products, such as hot beverage cup sleeves, can be made from higher quantities of post-consumer recycled fibre.
Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) Systems
- Use demand control ventilation for kitchen exhaust hoods and makeup air units.
- Use variable speed drives (VFDs) to control fan speed for ventilation hoods and kitchen makeup air units, instead of two speed on-off fan control.
- When installing kitchen exhaust hoods, select a custom-designed hood that meets the specific exhaust airflow requirements needed by the facility. Selecting a properly sized hood will reduce the fan speed, reducing both energy use and cost.
- Minimize the use of island hoods by locating exhaust hoods near walls for more efficient capture of exhaust.
Although heat recovery can be a great sustainability strategy for office buildings to reduce the heating or cooling load, it is generally not a good idea for restaurants or commercial kitchens. If not maintained and cleaned at a high frequency, the grease and smoke in the exhaust air can clog the heat exchangers.
Lighting
The largest opportunity to make lighting more sustainable is to replace current lamps with more efficient lamps. For example, within walk-in refrigerators and freezers, replace incandescent lights with low-temperature compact fluorescent lamps (CFL). CFLs give off less heat, reducing the amount of heat the refrigerator needs to reject. CFLs can also be used in the dining environment. However, if the dining environment requires subdued lighting, carefully select dimmable CFLs. Additionally, fluorescent T12 lamps can be replaced with more efficient T8 or T5 lamps. To minimize energy consumption from lighting, all lamps can be connected to a lighting control system with shutdown schedules.
Windows
The heat loss or gain from windows can be reduced by applying window film on south- and west-facing windows in the dining environments that get a lot of sun. The window film will help reduce cooling costs, make dining environments more comfortable, and help prevent fading of carpet, chairs and furnishings.
Reducing Demand Charges
A large portion of restaurant energy consumption occurs during peak hours of electricity consumption. Without proactive planning, food service providers may be subject to large monthly demand charges. Two strategies in particular can be used to minimize monthly demand charges:
- Schedule the ice maker to operate during off-peak hours, such as at night. In addition, less heat is rejected into the kitchen, decreasing the kitchen cooling load.
- Use digital demand controllers (DDCs) to control the operation of equipment, such as water eaters, air conditioners, electric space heating units and refrigerating equipment. Using DDCs to interrupt equipment operation for periods of 10 to 30 minutes can help to level the energy consumption load of the building, reducing power demand spikes that can result in large monthly demand charges.
Refrigeration Systems
Many small efforts can be made to improve the energy efficiency of refrigeration systems without replacing current appliances. Here are several tips to ensure your systems operate efficiently:
- Make sure that reach-in refrigerators and freezers are not pushed up tightly against the wall. Since refrigerators and freezers reject heat through the coils in the back, space between the wall and the coils is needed to prevent heat build-up. If heat builds up near the coils, the refrigerator or freezer will need to work harder, consuming more energy
- Periodically clean the coil fins as part of the preventive maintenance routine for refrigerators and freezers. Over time dust builds up on the coils, reducing the efficiency. Dust can contribute to equipment failure or more frequent maintenance service calls.
- Decrease energy consumption used for defrost cycles by setting refrigerator defrost cycles to meet the needs of the operation. In most cases, four 15-minute defrost cycles are sufficient. Adjusting the defrost cycle can result in a significant energy and cost savings.
- A low-cost upgrade for walk-in refrigerators is replacing strip curtains. Strip curtains alone can reduce outside air infiltration by 75%. Utility rebates are often available to cover a large portion of the capital cost. With the rebate, the payback can be less than one year.
Efficient Appliances
Energy is used for cooking, food preparation, cleaning and dishwashing.
Using reusable dishes and flatware, combined with energy- and water-efficient dishwashers and environmentally preferable detergents is one option to reduce solid waste. When disposable flatware is required, compostable flatware is an alternate environmentally preferable option. However, compostable flatware must be directed to a commercial composting facility, as it will not degrade within a landfill environment. When making decisions about disposable flatware and dishware, be sure to consider products made from renewable materials, post-consumer content and products that are compostable.
Measuring the Environmental Impact
Determining the environmental impact of a food service operation can reduce operational costs and improve environmental, financial and operational efficiencies. Like other sustainability initiatives, it is best to start by defining the goals of the effort and start with a small pilot project. The first step to measure the environmental impact of a food service operation is to determine what data should be collected, considering what environmental impacts are to be quantified. The data can include, but is not limited to, procurement practices, water consumption, electricity consumption, chilled water consumption, steam usage, volume or weight of compostable materials, recyclable materials and trash. Collecting water and energy consumption data is often the easiest place to start since most of this information is contained within utility invoices. Waste stream and supply chain data are often the most difficult to gather since this information is often scattered.
When collecting energy consumption data, it is important to differentiate between direct and indirect energy sources, and renewable or non-renewable sources, as each type of energy has a different emission factor. Differentiating between renewable or non-renewable energy sources is relevant when a facility has solar panels, wind turbines or purchasing agreements with the utility to provide a certain percentage of electricity from renewable energy sources. A direct energy source is one that is used directly to generate energy that can be used at the food service facility. An indirect energy source requires an intermediate process in order for the energy source to be used. For example, steam is an indirect energy source, produced from burning coal.
Procurement data includes the amount of sustainable products purchased, such as sustainable seafood, fair-trade coffee, environmentally preferable serviceware and products containing recycled content. Volume and dollars (or other monetary units) are common units of measure for supply chain data because they are readily available from invoices and other tracking systems.
More simply put, 25% of the building area may not actually translate to 25% of the energy used. Similarly, waste generation data can be converted from volume to weight using standard conversion factors. In all cases, it is important to document the source of the data, as estimated figures may vary greatly from an actual reading – ultimately impacting the accuracy of the data. Commercially available software systems can support effective data collection and analysis. Several software vendors offer solutions that are specifically designed to collect and manage resource consumption data, calculate greenhouse gas emissions and generate reports. For small calculation efforts, spread sheets can also be used.
Normalizing data enables an evaluation of efficiency measures, allowing comparisons from month-to-month and year-to-year at specific locations. Data can be normalized using several different units: number of guests, building area or revenue generated. After two to three years of data is collected, a benchmark for the facility can be established, which helps with decision-making. To start making decisions using the data, look for direct comparisons that allow conclusions to be drawn about practices within the organization.
For example, compare the tipping fees for land-filled trash and recycling. If tipping fees for trash can be reduced, both environmental and economic benefits result.