When it comes to sustainable food practices, some important things to consider are:
- 90% of consumers now say that, overall, sustainability matters to them.
- 57% of consumers believe that restaurant sustainability practices are somewhat influencing their choices when dining out.
- 39% of consumers have made choices to become more sustainable in the last 2 years.
- Most importantly, 21% of consumers will now go out of their way to eat at a sustainable restaurant.
From reducing food waste to opting for eco-friendly packaging, your venue can significantly contribute to a greener and more sustainable impact, while also attracting the large segment of consumers who now prioritise sustainable and ethical practices.
Additionally, by effectively communicating and marketing the sustainable aspects of your business to your customers, you can increase customer loyalty, retention and improve the perception of your venue. See our article here for more food business marketing tips.
Scroll down for our top 5 effective and straight-forward tactics to help implement sustainable food practices in your venue.
5 Steps to Implement Sustainable Food Practices in Your Venue
1. Embrace Seasonal Ingredients
Utilising seasonal produce in your venue is one of the simplest ways to improve your environmental impact in your kitchen.
By sourcing ingredients seasonally, foodservice venues can enjoy cheaper produce, with the added advantage of freshness, enhanced flavour and peak ripeness. Consumers now perceive seasonal food as a more natural, healthier, and tastier option, and with health trends on the rise, it’s evident that these elements heavily factor into many consumers’ purchase decisions.
For more information on how to use seasonal produce in your venue, check out our article here.
2. Reduce Food Wastage
Some straight-forward ways to help reduce your food wastage and waste footprint include implementing more accurate portion control, inventory management systems and composting measures - reducing the amount of food sent to landfill.
Simply from the recent statistics below, it’s clear that customers attitudes towards food waste are rapidly changing:
- 72% of consumers claim that they are now more conscious about their level of food wastage (compared to only 33% in 2019).
- 91% of consumers say that they would be more willing to spend money at an organisation that is taking actionable steps to reduce food waste, rather than one that isn’t.
Products like our pre-made Plain Pizza Bases and Margherita Pizza Bases easily reduce food waste on their own, without you having to implement specific processes or keep track of your ingredient wastage.
With food prices on the rise, pre-made products eliminate the need for a range of ingredients. For example, our Margherita Pizza Bases help cut down food waste and costs by offering an authentic, stone-baked base that you just have to add your chosen toppings to, then cook and serve. Additionally, our pizzas are long-lasting with a shelf-life of up to 12-18 months, helping reduce the wastage that you would otherwise experience with short shelf-life products.
The added benefit of long-lasting frozen products like our pizzas is the added nutritional benefit and enhanced vitamins and minerals that frozen foods can preserve, compared to fresh foods.
Implementing products like these in your kitchen can be a quick and simple way to reduce food waste and increase product consistency for your customers, without sacrificing the quality or taste of your menu items.
3. Invest in Energy-Efficient Appliances
Reducing energy consumption is a vital aspect of sustainability when it comes to foodservice venues. For food and beverage businesses, energy consumption accounts for more than 15% of operational costs, making energy efficiency critical - especially with the rising costs of living.
By investing in energy-efficient appliances and tools, your venue can significantly lower its energy usage and overall costs. Cost-effective products like our counter top quick-cooking stone-base pizza ovens have a small carbon footprint, low energy consumption and power-saving technology, helping increase energy efficiency in your venue.
Other simple ways to invest in energy efficiency are to install motion-sensor lights in walk-in fridges/freezers or storage spaces, ensuring that lights are only active when needed, or opting for renewable energy sources such as solar panels.
4. Promote More Sustainable Menu Options
Introducing meat-free or sustainably sourced menu options can not only help cater to dietary preferences, but also contribute to reducing the environmental impact of your foodservice venue.
Overall, meat-free dishes have a lower carbon footprint compared to meat-based alternatives, and vegetarian ingredients are almost always cheaper and easier to sustainably source.
Recent figures from earlier this year found that more and more restaurants are swapping meat dishes to vegan or vegetarian options as the cost of meat (and the rising population of a vegetarian diet) increases steadily.
High-quality vegan frozen foods, like our plain pizza bases, and vegetarian frozen foods, like our Margherita pizza bases, provide simple and easy ways to introduce more meat-free options to your menu. Products like our Margherita pizza bases can even be served as they are, with no extra toppings or meat products needed, providing a delicious and gourmet vegetarian option for your customers!
6% of the Australian population is made up of vegans (the third highest percentage of vegans per capita in the world!). Additionally, about 12% of Australians are vegetarian, accounting for about 2.5 million people. As for New Zealand, at least 10% of their population are vegan and vegetarian, with a 19% increase in plant-based diets in the last two years.
It’s clear to see that there's never been more demand for plant-based food in the foodservice industry than there is now and, with thousands of plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, there’s nothing holding your venue back from going more plant-based.
5. Source Recyclable or Biodegradable Packaging
Packaging is an integral part of the foodservice industry, especially if your venue offers takeaway and/or delivery services. By shifting to more sustainable and eco-friendly packaging, foodservice venues can significantly reduce the amount of single-use plastics ending up in landfill from their venue.
Whether it’s biodegradable, recyclable or compostable, there are many eco-friendly packaging materials to choose from, including bamboo and recycled paper.
As of January 2023, 81% of consumers strongly care about sustainable packaging and many choose to avoid businesses that offer non-recyclable packaging that negatively impacts the environment. Eco-friendly packaging like our 100% recyclable pizza boxes are simple and easy to implement and you can customise the design to suit your venue!
Overall, using eco-friendly packaging and communicating your sustainable practice efforts to your customers is a fantastic way to gain customer attraction and interest and drive customer loyalty.
To effectively communicate your values and sustainability practices to your customers, don’t miss our top food business marketing tips.
