5 Practices to Boost Your Restaurant's Menu and Sustainability

When it comes to your restaurant, sustainability matters. According to the Global Consumer Confidence Survey, 85% of millennial consumers have a preference for businesses with sustainable practices. 

But cooking with healthy, sustainable food in your restaurant doesn't only attract conscious-minded customers. It can also help you maintain energy savings in your business, reduce your restaurant's carbon footprint, and even boost your menu's flavours. If you want to improve your business in many ways, consider these 5 tips for a more sustainable restaurant:

1. Buy By Season

In our modern world, it's possible to get just about any vegetable, fruit, or fish at any time throughout the year. However, buying food out of season often means that it needs to be shipped from far away, decreasing its sustainability. In addition, foods that are not in season may not be as fresh — and may even require extra pesticides or fertilizers to thrive.

If you plan your menu based on seasonal patterns, you'll be partaking in a more natural pattern of eating, supporting local ecosystems of food production, and creating a vibrant and varying menu for your customers. Though it's probably not possible to make an all-local menu, you could:

• Swap out a vegetable side month-by-month to showcase different flavours
• Cater a fresh dessert around fruits that are particularly ripe and in-season
• Choose seafood entree choices based on what's seasonally available and sustainable

2. Manage Food Waste

One of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint? Pay attention to how you use and dispose of food waste. It's a great idea to have distinct areas for regular rubbish, recyclables, and compost. Training staff on which items can be composted can help decrease the amount of food that is thrown away.

In addition, it's important to prevent food waste in general by adopting some responsible habits in the kitchen. For example, make sure your staff knows how to store food responsibly to cut down on food waste (and keep food fresh and delicious!). In addition, pay careful attention to which menu items consistently sell — and which fail to sell. If you're ordering food based on menu items that aren't selling, then you may be wasting food — as well as wasting space on your menu that could be used for more popular items.

3. Choose Local Food

Want to support your local ecosystem, be more sustainable, and delight your customers with the freshest food possible — all with one buying choice? Purchasing locally-produced food can be an enormous asset. Challenge yourself and your staff to develop recipes that use local produce. There are plenty of ways you can approach local food sourcing:

• Are there any farmer's markets nearby to find fresh produce and fruit?
• Can you partner with a local fishers' cooperative to ensure fresh seafood?
• Can you work with a supplier that prioritizes local foods?

4. Serve More Plant-Based Meals

According to a Global Commission on sustainability published in The Lancet, limiting meat and switching to a more plant-based diet is necessary to:

• Support human health
• Manage a growing global population
• Improve sustainability and reduce environmental impact

As a chef in a restaurant, you have the power to make plant-based changes in your menu that can have a huge and profound impact. Worried that your customers won't like the menu changes? Rest assured that even a few simple alterations to your menu — such as providing a couple of vegetarian entrees — can still provide variety to your clients while showing off your culinary skills and sense of environmental responsibility.

5. Choose Organic When Possible

Foods that are grown conventionally are often sprayed with chemical pesticides that can have negative effects on local ecosystems. Inorganic food also uses massive quantities of chemical fertilizers, which then can enter the water supply and create further damage to animal species and the environment. Conventional agriculture damages the soil, introduces chemicals into our air and water, and requires an unsustainable amount of fertilizers.

Though it might not be possible to switch your entire menu to organic, it can make a huge impact if you buy organic when possible. Not only can you advertise to your customers that your menu boasts organic produce and meat, but you can feel assured in the positive ecological effects of your decision.

Local, Organic Food for Your Restaurant

When it comes to creating a more sustainable restaurant, a few simple decisions can really help you reduce your carbon footprint, embrace a more sustainable way of life, and showcase a thrilling and diverse menu for your customers.

At Qualityfood.ae, we resonate with attempts to create a more sustainable food system. That's why we're proud to be a supplier of local and organic food for the United Arab Emirates. Want to learn more about how we can keep you supplied with fresh and local food? Please contact us today for more information.

Sources:

nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2018/global-consumers-seek-companies-that-care-about-environmental-issues.html

thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31788-4/fulltext?utm_campaign=tleat19&utm_source=HPfeature