Sustainability & Social Responsibility

Consumer demand for environmentally-friendly menu items continues to grow, according to the National Restaurant Association's 2012 Restaurant Industry Forecast.

The data, part of the association's annual Restaurant Trends Survey, found the trend for sustainable foods increased among consumers in all segments, and most particularly at higher end establishments. In fact, 55 percent of adults said they were more likely to visit a restaurant that offered food grown or raised locally, organically or in environmentally friendly ways.

"The fact is diners of all ages are much more sophisticated and knowledgeable about food, nutrition and sustainable practices," said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the NRA's Research & Knowledge Group. "Not only do they want to be able to make more informed dining choices, they also want to help protect the environment when and where they can."

Culinary and hospitality students will benefit from a restaurant chain's fundraising campaign for the second year in a row.

The National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation and the California Restaurant Association Educational Foundation each will receive $20,000 grants from Yard House Restaurants. The funds, from the Irvine, Calif.-based company's Round It Up America campaign, will support NRAEF and CRAEF scholarships and ProStart programs.

Last year, NRAEF and CRAEF each received $15,000 grants from the campaign.

The National Restaurant Association's Conserve Sustainability Education Program and United States Composting Council have teamed up with a group of students at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy to examine barriers preventing restaurateurs from conducting organic composting at their various facilities.

The group of students: Candace Hewitt, Wendy J. Matheny, Tingting Tang and Kris FitzPatrick, are all students in the school's public policy masters' program. They will look at the regulatory policy and physical limitations that make composting at restaurants more difficult to implement. Findings from the study and subsequent report will be presented April 27 to the NRA and USCC.

Solutions developed as a result of the report could be incorporated into the zero waste zone initiatives used not only by Conserve and the USCC, but also such associations as Elemental Impact, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, the Foodservice Packaging Institute, Global Green & the Coalition for Resource Recovery and GreenBlue's Sustainable Packaging Coalition.

There are several innovative and cost-effective ways restaurateurs can implement sustainable actions into the building and operation of their foodservice businesses, according to Christopher Moyer, subject matter expert for the National Restaurant Association's Conserve Sustainability Education Program.

Operators interested in going beyond recycling and composting, who want to incorporate more out-of-the-box eco-friendly methods at their establishments, can do so easily, effectively and without spending tons of money, Moyer asserted.

"Many restaurateurs know of or are at least familiar with the three 'R's of sustainability: reduce, reuse and recycle," he said, "but even more of them are starting to employ a fourth R - repurpose."

Congress should extend a tax deduction for smaller businesses that donate surplus food to charity, representatives of the food industry said today in a Capitol Hill briefing.

The briefing for the Senate Hunger Caucus examined the stress and strain on food banks and food donations. As economic woes continue, demand for nutritious food has skyrocketed at food banks, food pantries and other charitable organizations.

One way Congress can encourage more food donations is "changing tax policy to make sure the food goes to families, not the local dump," said Jane Avery, president, Community Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Indiana.

Restaurateurs mindful of sustainability are finding ways to expand the possibilities of what they can recycle at their establishments.

As a result, they are moving beyond glass, plastic and paper to other, more complex items ‑ materials that range from carpets to cargo containers and adding momentum to the movement as both recyclers and users of recovered materials.

For example, wine bottle corks are now being collected by chain and independent restaurants for conversion into such items as shoe soles. Houlihan's Restaurants is participating in a pilot program called ReCork at its specialty steak and seafood restaurants that could lead to cork recycling at its namesake 85-unit dinnerhouse chain.

A provision in Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport's new 10-year operating contract requiring concessionaires to use compostable packaging as well as compost waste is one of the most significant sustainability initiatives of its kind, said Christopher Moyer, subject matter expert for the National Restaurant Association's Conserve Sustainability Education Program.

Moyer, along with Holly Elmore, founder and CEO of sustainability concern Elemental Impact, a strategic partner of the NRA, and onsite foodservice concern HMSHost, spearheaded a taskforce that just completed a yearlong exploratory project yielding tools and solutions concessionaires can use to comply with the contract's zero-waste provision.

"This [request for proposal] is game changing because of the sheer size of the airport," Moyer said. "It's one of the busiest in the nation. By implementing this plan, they essentially are changing the way food items are served there. Companies will now be required to put their products in compostable packaging."

The National Restaurant Association congratulated Starbucks Coffee Company on the success of its national jobs fund program, which has raised more than $1.5 million in donations since it debuted last November.

The program, called "Create Jobs for USA," was developed by Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz in partnership with the Opportunity Finance Network, a network of community development financial institutions that invests in small businesses in order to jumpstart employment throughout America. Schultz launched the program with a $5 million donation from the Starbucks Foundation at the end of 2011 when the national unemployment rate was 9.1 percent. It currently hovers at 8.6 percent.

In order to fund the jobs plan, Starbucks has asked its customers to donate $5 or more to the fund. Those who make donations receive a red, white and blue wristband inscribed with the word "Indivisible" on its face. Additionally, more than 150 business leaders have made contributions to the jobs initiative.

Food trucks, currently one of the most popular segments in foodservice, are driving an effort to be more eco-friendly, industry watchers are saying.

It's not that this emerging segment is "greener" than market sectors populated by brick-and-mortar restaurants per se, observers agree. Because the trucks are proliferating so rapidly, they're increasing the number of foodservice places that can engineer sustainability into the operation from the ground up.

Or, in the case of rolling feeders, such as southern California's Green Truck or New York City's Snap Food Truck, from the tires up.

Following a second trip to Atlanta to learn more about that city's zero waste zones program, the South Carolina Hospitality Association says it is committed to pursuing a similar sustainable model for restaurant and hotel businesses in Columbia, S.C., the state's capital.

 "The biggest takeaway [for me] is it's a lot easier to do than it sounds," said Douglas O'Flaherty, the SCHA's director of operations," one of several participants on the Atlanta trip. "This second tour solidified that it really is easy to do. That was proven time and again."

 The trip, organized by Holly Elmore, founder and CEO of Elemental Impact, a nonprofit that focuses on sustainable waste diversion; Chris Moyer, subject matter expert for the National Restaurant Association's Conserve Sustainability Education Program; and O'Flaherty, featured a series of tours and roundtable discussions with zero-waste experts from the Sheraton hotel in downtown Atlanta, the Georgia World Congress Center, local restaurateurs and officials from the Environmental Protection Agency. It also included a tour of Greenco, a composting facility in Barnesville, Ga., that specializes in the collection of organic materials such as food from commercial foodservice operations.