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Photo by Yukiko Kanada on Unsplash
Going green may be all the rage right now, but It’s quickly becoming a way of life for green-minded consumers and business owners alike. By making your catering service more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly, you can both reach a wider customer base and help minimise your business’s negative environmental impacts.
Going green isn’t easy, but we’re here to help. Below are some time-tested tips that will impress your green-minded consumers and contribute to a more responsible stewardship of our earth.
1. Green Foods are Environmentally Friendly Foods
Since food is the most important part of your catering service, it should also be the first place to start when trying to implement a few environmentally positive changes.
Be Open to Vegetarian and Vegan Dishes
The modern consumer is choosing vegetarian or vegan for a few good reasons. Without getting into the nitty-gritty details, some of the top reasons are related to the welfare of animals, personal health, the pressure on the workforce in the meat industry, and the great amounts of lands and resources that it takes to produce meat in general.
When taking the ecological impact into account, eating less meat leaves more space for other crops and reduces the amount of methane and other types of CO2 emissions.
On the flip side, vegetable farming is a more sustainable approach than animal farming. Producing any kind of meat involves more resources. And while you may still choose to serve a few meat options, consider rethinking your menu and implementing more plant-based proteins, including potatoes, lentils, quinoa, nuts, and chickpeas.
A Seasonal Menu is Always a Good Idea
Cooking seasonally not only allows you to use the tastiest, freshest produce available, but it also reduces your catering service’s negative environmental impact. A seasonal menu is always a good choice as it will reduce the number of resources required to transport vegetables from the farm to your kitchen. With a shorter distance, your business is generating less CO2 emissions and logging fewer food mills in gas-consuming vehicles.
Reduce Food Waste
This is an important change you have to make if you’re claiming to be a green-minded catering business entrepreneur. Reducing goods isn’t just environmentally friendly, it is also cost-effective, and you will definitely enjoy its long-term benefits. How to reduce food waste in your catering business?
- Learn how to repurpose ingredients to make new dishes.
- Track food inventory and adjust order amounts.
- Always donate leftovers from your event.
- Take advantage of overripe vegetables and fruits to make desserts, sauces, breads, and stocks.
- Create a compost pile for altered food and food that’s past the point of consumption.
2. Incorporate Sustainable Serving ware
Disposable serving wares are one of the largest sources of pollution in the nearby lakes, landfills, and oceans. We also know that they are an important part of any catering service. However, there are changes you can do to ensure you don’t contribute to an ecological disaster through your negligence.
For example, incorporating biodegradable disposables can offer a sustainable alternative to paper or foam products. These are both environmentally friendly and lightweight, not to mention they provide a rustic trendy feel. Bamboo bowls and utensils are also an option as bamboo is an abundant resource (oftentimes invasive plant species). Even better, bamboo products are biodegradable.
Choose disposable serving wares made with PET plastic that is biodegradable and can be easily recycled. Ensure you find a reliable waste management service that offers efficient plastic waste compactors in Australia and your local area.
Reusable tables wares
Switching to reusable napkins, tablecloths, and flatware is both environmentally positive and a good idea for large catered events. Napkins and tablecloths made of cloth are ideal at formal weddings, cocktail hours, banquets, and luncheons. If you have someone to handle the cleaning part for you, steering clear of paper tableware is your most sustainable option.
Beverage Stations
Why hand out plastic bottles of soda, water, or juice, when you can fill up large tank containers and dispense them to thirty crowds. Now that’s a green-minded catering service that saves a great amount of plastic and contributes to a more sustainable future with less waste and smaller CO2 emissions.
3. Recycle at Catering Venues
Recycling always serves good for catering services of any kind. However, this can require a few simple additional steps:
- Train staff on the latest waste management practices.
- Ensure everyone understands what can be set aside to be recycled.
- Offer gusts separate containers for recyclables.
- Mark every recycling container and all purposes cans.
4. Sustainable Catering Service – The Benefits
Our already tried and tired environment can no longer suffer companies and brands that act carelessly towards it, which counts for food caterers too. The gloomy realities of climate change are laid bare on the new, and we can no longer act like nothing is happening.
However, modern consumers also despise businesses that fake or exaggerate their sustainable practice, also known as “greenwashing.” Recent findings hint that greenwashing would considerably damage customer relationships, with 48% of them saying that they would purchase from the “greenwashers” as little as possible.
Before you go..
The race to take action towards climate change has started. Yet catering businesses that haven’t already begun significantly improving their services for consumers and the planet have already missed the boat. Like it or not, sustainable catering is the only viable option in 2022.