The unsustainablity of restaurants is a topic that is always in the back of my mind, due to the fact that I have worked in an extremely unsustainable restaurant for five years and prior to that worked in a camp dining hall that was as equally or even more unsustainable. Being a college student with rent to pay and a jam packed schedule, doesn’t leave me with the luxury of finding a new job that better fits my morals. So I look forward to a future where I feel proud of the company I work for and find ways to make it more sustainable. For the time being, I try to compost as much as I can at my current job and spend to much time stressing over the commodity corn-fed, industrial beef we sell.
Anyhow, I found this panel to be inspiring and one of my favorites during the Slow Food Conference; I hope they have more like this in the future, because its easy to overlook restaurants when people strive to live a more sustainable lifestyle.
The panel consisted of the former editor of Lucky Peach magazine, the co-founder of Snooze/President of EAT DENVER, and the author of Root to Leaf. Each panelist had their own unique ideas and take on how to make restaurants more sustainable; both from a customer’s point of view and from within the restaurant itself. Consumers often don’t realize it, but they have the power of the dollar on their side. They can put the pressure on restaurants and demand that their meal be offset (ie: carbon neutral). As you have probably heard before, it is important to vote with your dollar and vote for political candidates who care about sustainability. All of these things do play a big part in restaurants and the panelists even suggested demanding a a sustainability feature on Yelp; they created a Pokemon stop feature, so the public has the power to get a sustainability feature, too. It would also be lovely to have a outside resource, like a B-corporation rating, that confirms when a restaurant is sustainable. As a consumer, there are many things that can be done as suggested by the panelists, so there is little need to feel helpless, just demand more sustainability and accountability.
As a restaurant, they had a infinite amount of suggestions, many of which even saved the restaurant money in the long run. In the finance world, sustainability needs to be re-branded, so business owners realize that it isn’t just a hippie wet dream, but an unique lense of looking at the world that can ultimately save them money. Most importantly the panelists stressed that behavioral changes in creating an energy management system is the easiest way to save money (ex: turning off lights when the room isn’t in use). Getting a repair and maintenance schedule set will also save you money in the long run, so you aren’t faced with a enormous bill when something goes wrong. Keeping staff and having a low turnover rate is another obvious money saving trick. My favorite idea they had about saving the earth and saving money, was taking things that would have been turned into compost and turning them into profit (ex: cocktails out of food waste. Garnish, juice, or muddle).
Reducing food waste within the restaurant is one of the most important things that can be done to be more sustainable. Organizing and consolidating your fridge on a regular basis is extremely helpful. As well as, having an initial dish then using the waste to create a secondary dish. If there is food waste, it is important to compost it, since putting food in a landfill is a huge inefficiency. Recycling glass is also important and glass can even be reduced by putting more beers on tap or using ‘bladders’. Hosting a ’12 months of green’ program at a restaurant is another effective way to introduce a new subject about being more ‘green’ each month.
Ingredient wise, they stressed that farm-to-table shouldn’t just be a trend; seasonal cooking should be the new norm. Also there is this “wild” idea that if we raise beef properly then we can actually sequester carbon and it will help reverse climate change (imagine that!).
So many things can be done to improve the world if we just listen to the ideas of others, demand better sustainability in our restaurants, vote with our dollar, and change the way we use (or don’t use) food.