Sustainability in hospitality: 5 ways to improve resource efficiency in your business.

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Improving environmental efficiency is better for the planet, but it’s also better for profit margins. With our eyes never closer to the bottom line, we look at 5 simple ways that you can improve the environmental efficiency of your operation…

1. Reduce energy consumption

As a general guide, here are some areas to review and consider:

• Use energy efficient equipment.
• Carry out regular servicing and equipment checks to maintain efficiency.
• Reduce water consumption (use low flow spray valves, fix leaks).
• Use energy efficient lighting (LED bulbs.
• Reduce heat usage (use a smart thermostat).

There are many steps that F+B businesses can take to use less energy. Using induction stoves and low energy equipment that only delivers power and energy on request will considerably reduce power required. With careful menu planning there’s no need to have all the equipment running all the time. Menu cross utilisation is a great way to save energy and resources as well as reducing food waste.

2. Sourcing sustainable products

Think not only about food waste, but also food miles, When developing menus, the products that are required should be locally sourced as much as possible. Look for local suppliers and celebrate the use of these on your menus.

It’s important to be mindful that each of these suppliers will have to deliver to you. Having twenty local suppliers may therefore be counter-productive in terms of environmental impact.  Achieving a balance is the ideal approach.

It’s good practice to do your research.  Find a small number of local suppliers and distributors and check what selection of items they can provide for you. Then, build your menu from this and wherever possible try to avoid daily deliveries unless essential.

3. Monitoring, reducing and recording food waste

WRAP, Restaurants Taking Action on Waste:

Waste is one of the largest areas of profit leakage in hospitality and one of the biggest enemies in the battle of sustainability.  In the restaurant sector alone, food waste represents a cost of £683 million each year (WRAP, Restaurants Taking Action on Waste).  Now, more than ever, understanding where the waste occurs, how to manage it and turning that waste into revenue could be a key factor in survival of hospitality businesses worldwide.

In order to track wastage in your business and monitor how well you are doing in reducing it, it’s imperative to understand where it is happening. Typically, waste is broken down into 3 initial areas:

• 45% from food prep
• 34% from customer plate waste
• 21% from spoilage

In each of these areas there are some key changes you can make to achieve immediate results:

• Product cross utilisation: for example washing and drying carrot peelings to make a carrot powder that can be used on salads, main dishes, soups and even desserts!
• Over ordering: carefully manage stock levels, ensuring you have an accurate system in place to tell you what you should have in stock against your sales data.
• Stock Rotation: keep close control over your stock levels to avoid ordering unnecessarily- thus reducing spoilage.
• Menu cross utilisation: different from product cross utilisation. As this is where you create a tomato sauce for a pasta dish, but also look at how you can utilise this item in a dressing, or another main dish with basil and olives. Not only will this use the product faster, which avoids spoilage but also reduces labour instead of having to make 3 sauces.
• Regular store reviews to look at ageing stock, so that you can take action to create specials or use this stock up before it expires.

4. Education and Training

Implementing measures to improve sustainability in hospitality is the first step for your business, the second is maintaining those measures and educating everyone in your team about the steps they need to take, and why.

• Training: for example, ensuring your team are properly trained preparing a pineapple to maximise the yield of flesh. This takes a few minutes but pays for itself over time.
• Education: making sure all the team know the true cost of a product. Cost price vs selling price and the factors that influence both.

5. Technology to the rescue

F&B management software can make the administration of waste management far more time efficient and accurate.  Businesses are able to manage food waste levels more effectively by logging the amounts of and types of waste they produce. Adding reasons for waste gives users the ability to take effective action. A simple report highlights the monetary value of wastage in the business. This can often be a key area that is overlooked in the overall financial performance.