Waste has been highlighted as an epidemic in recent years due to its environmental effects, and no industry is immune. Plastic waste has become a huge problem for waterways, and manufacturing facilities have had to change how they handle byproducts from their facilities.
Food is one of the most common forms of waste we engage with every day. According to Feeding America, approximately 92 billion pounds of food is wasted each year, which means even catering at the office can contribute to global waste. We see catering at events or offices with just too much food left over and the majority of the time it all ends up in the trash.
Not only does that contribute to the global waste problem, but it also leads to wasted money. We’re going to discuss some simple ideas to help you become more conscious about how sustainability can work with (and even benefit) your catering decisions.
What is Sustainable Catering?
Sustainable catering is the process of keeping your catering from causing excess waste and losing money on discarded food. This is a method of accurately determining how much food you need for catering and keeping costs at a reasonable level. The goal of sustainable catering should be to prevent as much waste as possible while still ensuring your team isn’t left hungry.
Sustainability Trends in the Catering Industry
For a lot of catering companies, sustainability is just as important if not more. Sustainability trends are leaning into the service industry to do their part.
The green movement has become firmly nestled into service as a whole, becoming a large target for criticism when it comes to plastic waste and carbon footprint. Sourcing local products, using eco-friendly packaging, and even getting green certifications help boost the sustainability of these restaurants and catering businesses.
This, in turn, trickles down to your choices when doing catering. Because of the new trends in sustainability, you get the ability to make choices that contribute to the greater good. It’s easier than ever to cover a variety of earth-positive dietary restrictions too, like veganism. Let’s look at some of the sustainability trends in the catering industry.
- Reducing food waste is one of the biggest trends in the catering industry and the service industry as a whole. According to Move for Hunger, a nonprofit organization providing transportation for food donations, approximately 85% of food used in the average American restaurant is wasted. This is an alarming statistic when 42 million people in the United States are dealing with food insecurity. Restaurants and catering services are starting to combat this by donating and composting the food they no longer need. Some states have even implemented guides on how to combat food waste in the service industry, like California.
- Reducing plastic and other similar waste is just as important if not more for the environment. An estimated 40% of plastic waste, the biggest contributor to greenhouse emissions, comes from food packaging alone. Plastic doesn’t compost like organic material does and can sometimes take hundreds of years to break down, releasing harmful oils and compounds over time. Catering businesses and restaurants are combating this by switching to biodegradable food packaging.
- Organic and sustainable farming has become an important aspect of food culture in the United States. With the rising concern about how pesticides affect the human body and how unethical factory farms can become a serious health hazard, organic and sustainable foods feel like a civic duty for many restaurants and catering companies. Some studies suggest that eating an organic diet can reduce your exposure to the four main types of pesticides by an average of 60%.
- Supporting vegan options on a catering menu contributes to the mission of veganism as a whole. Plant-based diets have been identified as planet-friendly and more sustainable than traditional diets. Vegan options on catering and restaurant menus alike have become more and more popular in recent years, with 71% of Americans claiming to have tried at least one type of meat alternative.
- Water conservation is yet another big trend in sustainability for restaurants and catering companies. The energy it takes to clean and reintegrate potable water into our water system can cost around $2 billion alone annually. Service industry businesses can take charge of reducing the amount of water wasted by implementing best practices for sustainable water usage, like the ones outlined here.
- Keeping things local not only reduces travel emissions from trucks bringing food from out of the area, but it also puts money back into the community. Trucks make up for around 75% of food transportation, making food travel nearly half of the emissions from road vehicles. This means multiple local businesses can work together to reduce emissions and continue to support each other without having non-sustainable businesses come in and take over.
- Switching to electric vehicles to reduce emissions is becoming popular, even for big restaurants like Pizza Hut. Electric vans and other types of big vehicles have hit the market, allowing catering businesses to have a sustainable, green option for their deliveries.
Knowing about what’s trending for sustainability in the catering industry can help you become more educated on your options.
Sustainable Catering Best Practices
Knowing what to look for when you choose a catering business can help you make choices that align with your values on sustainability. Ask yourself the following questions when you’re looking at options for catering:
Are the ingredients being used high quality? Are they locally sourced?
Using good quality, locally sourced ingredients puts money back into the community and helps reduce the amount of travel the ingredients need to go through as we mentioned above. Staying educated on the catering companies you choose to do business with is essential when participating in sustainability. If a catering business claims to be sustainable, it should easily be able to answer these questions.
What does this catering service do with their excess food? All restaurants and catering businesses will have excess food at some point, uneaten food is common for caterers. Knowing what the catering company does with the extra food can tell you a lot about how they view waste.
What steps does this company take to reduce their carbon footprint? Do they use biodegradable utensils and reduce their single-use plastics?
Is there any notable charity or community work the company is involved in? Sustainability doesn’t stop with reducing harm caused to the earth itself, the people living on it are just as important.
Do they cover all the dietary restrictions my team might have? Considering dietary restrictions reduces the amount of uneaten food and can create repeat customers, reducing experimentation with other catering options that might be less sustainable.
Overall, catering companies that make the effort to be sustainable will create a positive business relationship for your company as well. The choices we make impact the world around us, even when it comes to choosing catering.
How Does Sustainable Catering Benefit Your ROI?
Sustainable catering doesn’t just make your company look good, there are a lot of other benefits as well. Investing in sustainable catering can:
Reduce wasted spend
Help prevent you from over-ordering food, reducing wasted food AND wasted money.
Annually, the United States wastes around $161 billion worth of food, with the average family throwing away about $1,500 each year. Imagine how much of your catering budget was thrown away in uneaten food.
Employee satisfaction
Employees love food, but knowing your catering service works with their dietary restrictions is a great way to make them feel extra cared for. If you’re especially interested in getting staff back in the office, this one’s for you. In a recent study, 1 in 3 people said meal benefits would encourage them to come back to the office. The results are in, and employees love free food, especially when they know it’s sustainable and good for their bodies. Physical and mental health tie deeply into work and life satisfaction and work in tandem with each other, so ensuring you utilize sustainable catering options for your office can help your staff feel satisfied with not only the work they do but their lives and well-being as well.
Employer brand
The aspect of choosing sustainability can boost rapport with your staff and even be listed as a benefit for potential future employees. Loyalty in the job market has shifted greatly from the past, with approximately 56 million Millennials making up the majority of the workplace. The average time spent in any given position is now 4.4 years, a much smaller number than it was previously for the Gen X and Baby Boomer generations. This means if you expect employees to stay longer than the average, you have to know what future and current employees value. Sustainability is one of the big ones for Millennials (around 94% of them) and aligning your employer brand with what your staff is looking for will lead to happier workers overall.
Employee health and productivity
Sustainable foods are often healthier, leading to better body and brain function. Healthy employees lead to reductions in absenteeism, less spacing out on the job, and decreases in company healthcare benefit costs to the tune of around 60%. The CDC even suggests that health-related programs in the workplace can help your staff’s families too, creating a domino effect.
Using sustainable catering companies and practices helps both you and the earth. When you invest in your employees and companies that care about the world around you, it returns to you in the form of better quality work and a positive view of your business.
How to Choose a Sustainable Catering Service
If you’re ready to make the switch to sustainable catering, Zerocater makes it easy. With customized menu options to suit your employee’s needs, you don’t have to worry about dietary restrictions or how much food to order. Traditional catering methods have a vetting process that involves a lot of phone calls, trust, and experimentation.
Zerocater guarantees you’ll have the foods your employees love with one simple tool, no balancing phone calls or vetting Yelp reviews required. You even have the flexibility of deciding the types of catering that work best for you, fitting in all budget and size demands! If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, consolidated catering service with staff dedicated to creating happy experiences for your business, contact us today. We’ll give you personalized information on what Zerocater can do to improve your catering needs.
