Start a Reuse Revolution: How to Embrace Circularity in Your Restaurant

What are the benefits of embracing circularity in my restaurant?

Adopting a low- or no-waste attitude is incredibly important for protecting our planet and as part of the fight against the climate crisis… but what does it mean for your business?

• Save money. In a time when costs are spiralling out of control, a circular approach might be exactly what you need to save valuable money. Reducing, reusing, recycling and repairing are all cost-effective ways to get the most out of every resource, and ditching the single-use mentality instanty removes numerous regular outgoings.
• Reduce your energy bills. By implementing energy-efficient methods, you’ll see even more cost savings through significantly reduced energy bills.
• Future-proof your business. The practices of circularity can help your business comply with existing and future environmental legislation.
• Improve recruitment. Multiple recent studies have shown that people looking for a job are increasingly including environmental issues as part of their decision-making process. Adopting a circular approach will make your business a more appealing workplace, making attraction, recruitment and retention easier.
• Attract more customers. Similarly, customers are drawn to planet-friendly businesses. Operating under the principles of circularity and being open and transparent about your no-waste policies will only serve to make your establishment more appealing. In the recent Footprint report 'Can a cup save the planet?', research revealed that 29% of customers hate single-use food and drink packaging and 48% want restaurants and takeaways to take responsibility for providing convenient, reusable packaging.

How can I implement circularity in my restaurant?

The first question to ask yourself at every point is whether the item or action in question is truly necessary to begin with; circularity means creating, purchasing and using as little at possible. Doing nothing is always the most sustainable option.

Once you’ve confirmed that the item or action is a necessary one, you should examine whether there’s a way to use something that already exists. Repurposing, reusing and sharing are all valuable components of the circular economy.

Finally, ensure that any decisions are made with end-of-life in mind. What will happen with this item once you can’t use it any longer? Can it be refurbished, repurposed or broken down into usable parts – and who is responsible for doing this?

Read on for some practical ways in which you can apply the theory of circularity to the non-food elements of your restaurant, café, bar or hotel, kickstarting a reuse revolution and saving money while you’re at it.

Packaging

• Use exclusively reusable (and ideally also reused) packaging for the products you receive from suppliers and those you sell onwards. Speak to your suppliers and inform them of your plan to avoid all unnecessary and single use packaging – more and more suppliers are willing to work with businesses on ths.
• Buy in bulk and/or switch to refills wherever possible.
• Choose reusable transit containers like trays and crates.
• Rather than stocking and selling individual bottles or cans, look for reusable and multi-serving options like bags in boxes, kegs and taps, or drinks guns behind the bar.
• Use small price reductions to reward your customers for bringing their own coffee cups, water bottles and other takeaway packaging. You could even follow the lead of Dublin’s Bread 41 bakery, which no longer offers single-use packaging at all. If you want a takeaway coffee, you need to bring your own cup – or you can ‘rent’ one of their travel mugs and bring it back at a later date.
• For takeaway items, stop automatically providing paper napkins, straws and disposable cutlery. Customers will ask when/if they need these items. Have biodegradable options on hand for when they do make a request.
• For in-house dining, ditch the straws altogether. However, source some reusable metal straws and keep these to hand for customers with disabilities, for whom straws may be a necessity.

Transportation

• Use electric vehicles or other forms of sustainable transport to receive orders and make deliveries. For local deliveries, could you deliver by bicycle?
• For goods coming from far away, implement a strict ‘no air freight’ policy and look for alternative methods of transport.
• Review your transport routes to find the most efficient use of time and fuel.

Equipment

• Buy refurbished kitchen equipment, fittings and furniture where possible.
• Repair and refurbish as a matter of policy.
• Use pre-used materials as the basis for your décor: follow the example of The Bull Inn, Totnes, where interiors are decorated with antique and vintage furniture and installed with refurbished vintage radiators, and flooring is done using old quarry tiles. 
• Recycle anything you can’t repair or re-use, or donate it to someone who can do so.

Energy

• Speak to your supplier about switching to dark green energy tariffs.
• Transition to using solely renewable energy to power your business. (We have a free, downloadable toolkit on this here!)
• Upgrade older, more inefficient appliances to more energy-efficient ones ­– but only once the older appliances have reached the end of their lifespans.
• Provide regular training for staff around reducing energy consumption, including comprehensive ‘switch-off’ policies.
• Make sure your fridges and freezers are set to the optimum temperature. While you obviously can’t have them warm enough to spoil food, even running them at 1˚C colder than is actually needed can waste a significant amount of energy – and money! – every year.

Water use

• Treating water is a costly and complex process, and freshwater is a finite resource. Using less water in the first place is critical.
• Train your staff to be water-aware and put water-conscious policies in place to make this the norm.
• Harvesting rainwater in also a viable option, especially in countries that get a lot of rain. Use this for watering plants, flushing toilets and/or for general cleaning purposes.
• Be smart with water. If you’re running a tap while waiting for hot water, can you capture the cool water and use it for something else: washing vegetables, making stock or soup or for cleaning purposes?
• More hotels, especially, are now installing their own facilities for reusing greywater – water that has already been used in running dishwashers and other kitchen appliances, or that has gone down the sink. This is perfectly reusable for non-drinking purposes such as flushing toilets. While installing greywater facilities can be an impractical and expensive undertaking by itself, it is well worth considering during initial construction or as part of other major renovations.

Other considerations

• Rethink which workwear is actually necessary for your team. For the items you do need – like chefs’ jackets – choose sustainable materials and invest in good quality items that will last.
• Ask employees to report any damage in their workwear – like rips and tears – immediately, so that the items can be repaired. Ensure staff who are leaving the business return their uniforms to you as part of a standard exit policy, so that you can make sure they are repaired, reused and/or recycled appropriately.
• Look for no-print alternatives for how you present your menu. Can you switch to digital menus, or use blackboards to display what’s on offer?
• Ditch the print job elsewhere, too. From taking orders to providing receipts, there are digital options available that will save that paper.
• Could low lighting from LED bulbs set the mood as effectively as burning candles?
• For in-house dining, change paper napkins for reusable cloth ones.

Your space itself

Can you get more out of the space your business occupies?

• Maybe you could rent your kitchen out on the days you’re closed, or provide front-of-house space for local events, charity groups, classes or workshops.
• ShareDining is one great example of a platform that connects empty kitchen spaces with people who need it.

For more about restaurants and the circular economy, check out this guide that we produced with ReLondon. ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ is just one of 10 key focus areas of the Food Made Good Framework – explore them all here!

Interested in how the principles of circularity can be applied to your food offering? Keep an eye on our blog and social channels in March, when we’ll be tackling the theme of ‘Waste No Food’!