A little green on the menu
Restaurants re-prioritize sustainability as they reopen
The pandemic took a toll on Valley restaurants’ environmental efforts, but as they reopen they’re moving back toward sustainable packaging.
During the holidays in 2019, customers packed Starbucks stores for the chance to get a free, reusable red cup. But that was before crowds, and reusable cups, became a cause for concern. ● Prior to the pandemic, cities and states around the country were taking steps to reduce the amount of single-use plastic in stores and restaurants. ● In 2014 California became the first state to ban single-use plastic bags and the next year, Hawaii followed suit. Fast-forward five years and a total of eight states had enacted bans on plastic bags. In 2019, Vermont took it one step further restricting the use of single-use straws and foam containers. ● But as the coronavirus pandemic took hold of the nation, states including California, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and New York paused or reversed plastic bag bans. Coffee shops, including Starbucks, abruptly stopped accepting reusable cups. When restaurants closed their dining rooms, the use of takeout containers skyrocketed.
With so many restaurants suddenly serving food to-go, the pandemic caused a shortage of products including cardboard boxes, plastic gloves and takeout containers. In Arizona, paper bags have been hard to get and black foam containers are almost impossible to find, one Arizona distributor says.
Prior to COVID-19, takeout orders made up about 4% of sales for national brunch chain Snooze, which has locations in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Gilbert and Tucson. At points during 2020, takeout orders were the only way the restaurant could serve customers.
Sustainability is one of the company’s core focuses and Snooze was on track to announce carbon neutrality goals prior to the pandemic, says Senior Brand Manager Becky Fairchild. Instead, the pandemic forced the company to focus mainly on survival.
“The switch as a business was hard,” Fairchild says. “From a sustainability standpoint, it was stressful for us.”
But the need for takeout containers is decreasing as restaurants reopen their dining rooms. Restaurant owners are still recovering from the financial impact of the pandemic, but programs and initiatives to help the environment may once again become a priority.
How the pandemic impacted environmentalism
David Charns owns Captain’s Restaurant Supply, a company that sells paper and plastic goods to restaurants and food businesses in Arizona.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit and restaurants closed in March 2020, Charns says his business immediately dropped by about 30% because many restaurants closed completely. But as
restaurants switched to takeout service, Charns’ business recovered — and then increased by about 25%, he says.
Restaurants needed more of everything, paper and plastic, as takeout became their sole way of doing business, Charns says.
Helene Tack is the sustainability liaison with Local First Arizona, where she works with businesses around the state to increase environmental awareness and help implement sustainability measures. She says restaurant owners were put in a difficult position regarding sustainability during the past year. When focused on saving their businesses, restaurant owners may not have been prioritizing going green, she says.
There’s a substantial price difference between conventional and sustainable packaging, whether that be compostable containers or paper straws. Restaurants often took the cheaper route, she
says.
“The biggest change since COVID is businesses being in survival mode so the sustainability component took a little bit of a side step,” Tack says.
“And you can’t judge businesses for choosing cost savings when they are trying to keep their doors open,” she adds.
Charns carries both sustainable and traditional packaging including recyclable plastic containers, paper bags, boxes and compostable containers, which are made from a range of materials. Popular options include sugarcane, paper pulp and wheat straw. But Tack also carries foam containers in order to service a wide variety of customers.
Single-use plastic bags cost about 2 cents per bag, as opposed to paper grocery bags with handles that cost about 25 cents each, he says. Compostable cutlery is four times the price of plastic knives and forks. A case of foam to-go containers costs $25, while equivalent compostable paper pulp containers come in at $40.
“Even pre-pandemic when everyone was getting groovy and going green, people still couldn’t go to the reusable because it’s more expensive,” Tack says. “So I still have to carry the stuff we shouldn’t be using like bags and foam.”
How some restaurants minimized their impact during COVID-19
Despite the added cost, some restaurants continued to prioritize sustainability throughout the pandemic. Mike Baum owns Dilla Libre, a quesadilla restaurant with locations in Phoenix and Scottsdale.
Before he opened Dilla Libre, Baum worked for a solar power company and sustainability has always been a passion.
“It’s so easy as a restaurant to have a huge footprint on our environment,” Baum says. “So we try to minimize that as much as we can.”
Along with trying to persuade more people to try vegan food — Dilla Libre offers two menus, one being completely vegan — which generally has a smaller environmental impact, Baum uses only compostable containers and biodegradable straws at his restaurants.
When he first started Dilla Libre as a food truck, Baum cringes remembering how he used foam containers.
“I woke up one day and realized it was weighing heavily on my conscious,” he says.
The next day, he decided to switch to compostable containers.
The extra expense is difficult, Baum says, especially as the cost of food and labor increases and his margins shrink. Also, sustainable packaging has some shortcomings. Paper straws disinte
grate and compostable great for certain foods,
Baum says.
“There’s nothing out there that will do what the Styrofoam cup will do,” he says. “But to us, it’s not really an option because you have to go to sleep at night proud of what you did that day.”
From his experience, Baum says customers are more likely to support a business if they feel good about it as well. And often, people are willing to pay a little more for food knowing the business’ values align with their own, he says, explaining that it just wouldn’t make sense to serve vegan food in foam containers.
Why going green isn’t black and white
cartons aren’t like hot soup,
‘We did it because it’s the right thing to do’
At Snooze, which has 45 restaurants nationwide, maintaining an environmental focus despite the pandemic has been essential, Fairchild says.
In locations outside California, which has different composting regulations, Snooze serves to-go food in compostable containers made from sugarcane.
Over the past year, the company has experienced takeout container shortages. At points during the pandemic, distributing containers to restaurants became an all-hands effort.
“When restaurants would run out in the middle of service on a Saturday, we were driving around and dropping off bags and utensils,” Fairchild says.
When sturdy sugarcane boxes ran out, the company switched to a more flimsy, yet still compostable boxes. Fairchild says they had to rethink the decision quickly after customers complained. But the company was proud to stick to its sustainability measures, she says.
“We wanted to stay true to who we are, and we did it because it’s the right thing to do,” Fairchild says.
When it comes to deciding to make the switch to eco-friendly containers, the options aren’t black and white. The differences between biodegradable, recyclable and compostable can be confusing, Charns says.
Most plastic-coated paper cups, such as coffee and soda cups, cannot be recycled
or composted because they blend two materials together. Biodegradable plastics break down into tiny pieces, but the microplastics left behind stick around for thousands of years.
Charns estimates that about 90% of the packaging he sells is recyclable. But sometimes it’s not the expensive, compostable containers that can make the most difference for the environment. Aluminum is one of the easiest materials to recycle, so metal serving trays and tin foil are a cost-effective way to go green.
But there is an argument for and against every product, Charns says. For example, it takes more oil to create a paper bag than a plastic bag. And in order for most compostable containers to actually break down, they need to be processed by industrial composting facilities.
But weighing all the options, Charns says he thinks compostable containers are the best option for minimizing the amount of trash produced over generations.
“At the end of the day if it goes into a landfill, in 1,000 years it will be gone. Plastic will not,” he says.
Still, restaurants working to improve sustainability can only do so much; they can’t control if customers actually put recyclable containers into a recycling bin once they leave.
But restaurants can choose to provide less packaging to their customers, Charns says. Most people are taking togo food home so he recommends restaurant
staff ask utensils.
“Just use less,” Charns says. “If a customer asks for a napkin, don’t give them 20.”
if customers even need
Here’s how restaurants can be more sustainable
Kaizen, a sushi restaurant in downtown Phoenix, opened in June 2020 as a fully-takeout operation. While the restaurant now offers dine-in service, for the first few months takeout was the only way customers could get Kaizen’s food.
Co-owner Kyu Utsunomiya says the restaurant uses recyclable plastic containers along with compostable balsa wood containers. When opening a takeout-only restaurant, he says the cost of containers, which can be up to 15-20% of the total expense of an order, was factored into the business plan.
Now that the restaurant is open for dine-in, takeout has become more profitable. If a customer orders to-go, a table they would have otherwise taken up at the restaurant can now seat other customers. This offsets the cost of containers, Utsunomiya says.
Using so many takeout containers hasn’t been ideal, but Utsunomiya says the company has worked to decrease its footprint in other ways. At the restaurant, all glass bottles and cans are separated for recycling, and for local deliveries, staff use an electric scooter to drive sushi orders around downtown
Phoenix.
The pandemic has inspired other green-minded companies to get creative.
Snooze joined a program that allows them to offset the carbon generated by delivery drivers making trips to and from the restaurants. The company purchased carbon offsets through a regenerative grassland program in eastern Colorado led by the Southern Plains Land Trust and Native Energy. The grass works to absorb CO2E, or carbon dioxide equivalent, from the air.
International coffee giant Starbucks is also testing a workaround for its pause on accepting reusable cups in five Seattle locations.
Called “Borrow a Cup,” the program lets customers order a drink in a new, reusable cup for a $1 fee. Then customers can return the cup to stores or have them picked up at home and get the $1 back. The cups are then professionally sterilized and used again. Each reusable cup in the borrowing program can replace 30 paper cups, Starbucks told USA Today. There are many facets to sustainability, Tack, the sustainability liaison with Local First, says, and every step a business takes can help. To offset the costs of more expensive eco-friendly containers, some sustainable practices such as reducing water and electricity can save money, she says.
Local First offers a program called the “Arizona Green Business Program“to help entrepreneurs in Tempe, Phoenix and Mesa determine ways they can make their small businesses more sustainable. Snooze runs a similar program, called “12 Months of Green.” Through the program, the company encourages and works with other restaurants to pick an area of focus to improve on each month and gradually move towards better environmental stewardship.
At Dilla Libre, Baum focuses on “bridging the gap between vegan and traditional eaters.”
“Every time someone tries our cauliflower bites and likes it because it’s delicious, not because it’s vegan, that’s a huge step forward,” he says.
At the end of the day, Charns says it’s important to think of the next generation and the earth they will inherit.
“I don’t care if you believe in global warming or not,” he says. “Is it really right to pollute the world?