By Indiana Lee, Contributor
In the restaurant industry, going green is no longer a trend, it’s a necessity. The food and beverage sector is one of the most significant sources of carbon emissions. Food production alone accounts for an estimated 25% of global emissions and the food and beverage industry as a whole accounts for roughly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Aside from how damaging this is to the environment, it’s also necessary to address this issue for the sake of the consumer. To stay relevant and maintain your business as a restaurant, you must adapt to the higher demands of today’s more eco-conscious consumers.
According to a recent report, 49% of consumers consider sustainability factors when making food and beverage purchases. This not only applies to what people are purchasing in stores but also to what restaurants they choose to dine at.
There are, of course, many ways that restaurants can adopt sustainable practices, but the best place to start is the beginning of the supply chain — specifically, your sourcing. How and where you source your food and raw materials from as a restaurant will have the most significant impact on your sustainability efforts.
The Challenges of Sustainable Sourcing
Before diving into the strategies for effective sustainable sourcing, it’s necessary to address the challenges of these endeavors. Though sustainable sourcing is important, it is not something that is easily achieved. There are a number of problems that make sustainable sourcing hard to navigate in the food sector, including:
Supply chain transparency: Because global supply chains are so complex, tracing the origin of materials and ingredients is not easy. Restaurants cannot achieve sustainability without transparency and being able to trace their ingredients.
Greenwashing: With sustainability becoming so important, many suppliers are making claims that they are sustainable. While this might be true for some, not all of these claims are verified and thus could simply be a form of greenwashing, or pretending to be sustainable without actually following through on sustainable practices.
Packaging: When it comes to sustainable sourcing, the issue isn’t just the food itself, but the packaging. Plastic remains the most common packaging material when dealing with food and beverage products. Unfortunately, plastic is a major contributor to pollution.
These are three of the biggest issues when it comes to sustainable sourcing. However, another problem that plays an indirect role is food waste. While food waste isn’t directly a sourcing issue, it can be a result of poor ingredient and material management practices related to inventory management.
Effective Sustainable Sourcing Strategies
The key to mitigating the above issues lies in various strategies and solutions. Again, while sustainable sourcing is achievable, it does require your restaurant to be proactive and put meaningful effort into adopting more sustainable supply chain practices.
1. Source Locally
To reduce your carbon footprint and address the issue of traceability and transparency, it’s necessary to start working with more local suppliers. When you source locally, it’s much easier to trace exactly where your ingredients and materials are coming from. Sourcing locally also means your product will not have to travel as far to get to you, which results in fewer carbon emissions from transportation.
2. Be Selective
When choosing your suppliers, whether they are local or not, it’s vital that you do your research to ensure you are working with companies who are genuine about their sustainability claims.
As you, the restaurant, are their customer, they should care about providing you with the best product possible and helping you achieve your sustainability goals. Your experience with your suppliers is just as important as your own customers’ journeys when they visit your restaurant.
Common pain points in the B2B food and restaurant industry customer journey that a supplier should be willing to address include concerns about price points and budgeting, as well as offering a wider selection of product options to meet your needs. If your suppliers do not seem to care about your customer journey and are not willing to be transparent with you about their sustainable practices, then you should find another supplier.
Some examples of questions you can ask when choosing sustainable suppliers include:
What are your current Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) practices?
How is your company committed to reducing waste?
What efforts are you putting toward reducing transportation emissions?
Where do you source your raw materials?
In what ways are your practices benefiting the environment?
Do not be afraid to ask these questions of your suppliers. Asking the right questions is the key to determining whether your suppliers are truly sustainable or if they are participating in greenwashing.
3. Seek Alternative Packaging
When working with suppliers, it’s not only important to ensure your food and ingredients are ethically and sustainably sourced, but also your packaging materials. Reducing plastic, especially single-use plastics, plays a significant role in helping your restaurant become more sustainable. So when sourcing your packaging, look for alternative materials, such as those that are biodegradable, to reduce your plastic waste.
4. Reduce Waste with Inventory Technology
To avoid ordering more products than is needed, which can lead to food and other material waste, it’s important that you adopt inventory management technologies. The right tools and technologies can help your restaurant reduce the environmental impact of excess inventory.
There are a number of tools available today that can help you optimize your inventory. When choosing the right tool for your restaurant, you’ll want to look for features such as demand planning and forecasting, data for inventory turnover ratio, and monitoring of current stock levels.
In addition to adopting inventory management tech, you can also look for ways to recycle and repurpose overstock to avoid anything that is still of use going to waste.
Wrapping Up
Integrating sustainable sourcing practices into your supply chain strategies can have a huge impact on your restaurant’s success. Not only does it benefit the environment, but it can also lead to an enhanced brand reputation, better food quality, long-term savings, and increased customer satisfaction. Adopting sustainable practices can also help your restaurant stay ahead of policies in government and ensure compliance with changing regulations concerning climate change and sustainability.
