The Sustainable Kitchen

Which energy efficient equipment should you use? Where should you buy your recyclable materials? What standards should you strive to meet? 

Here are the industry's answers to all of your sustainability needs:

Vegware

You can’t recycle food with plastic in it, and you can’t recycle plastic with food on it. This is the key at the heart of Edinburgh-based Vegware, the global specialist in plant-based compostable foodservice packaging. 

 Vegware’s catering disposables are made from plants using renewable, lower carbon, recycled or reclaimed materials. Its full range is designed to be recycled together with food waste in commercial composting facilities, where accepted. 

 The 300+ eco-friendly range of quality cutlery, hot and cold cups, tableware and takeaway boxes brings you the high street retail look to help capture sales around the clock. Vegware has won 70 awards for sustainability and innovation, including twice winning the Queen’s Award for Enterprise. 

 People buy with their eyes, so choose smart packaging that enhances your menu, boosts sales and enables higher margins. Practical and stylish Vegware helps food look good so you can sell more. Development chefs work with Vegware at the start of their creative process to create the perfect food-packaging combination. 

Vegware’s in-house Creative team can custom print a wide range of products with low MOQs, using vegetable or water-based inks with a great print finish. 

Website: https://www.vegware.com/

Contact number: +44 (0)3333 055 404 

Email: sales@vegware.co.uk

Twitter: @vegware

Instagram: @vegware

RATIONAL

Sustainability with the VarioCookingCenter 

Requirements for more efficient use of resources in commercial kitchens are continually increasing. Processes need to be more efficient, which means space requirements, water and energy consumption as well as the use of raw materials need to be reduced. 

 Energy-efficiency and speed 

When it comes to creating an energy efficient kitchen, the greatest impacts can be made by choosing multifunctional equipment reducing the number of the appliances installed in a kitchen.

 The VarioCookingCenter makes it possible to boil, pan-fry and deep-fry in one appliance eliminating the need to purchase and operate appliances such as frying pans, grillplates, boiling pans, ranges or deep-fat fryers for each individual kitchen task. 

The heat conductivity of the patented VarioBoost heating system transfers the energy directly through the entire pan base surface and achieves a 100% even temperature distribution with increased power, speed, precision and uniformity. The heating systems are much more efficient than any other in conventional kitchen appliances.  

The simplest method to save energy in commercial kitchens is to only switch on electrically operated appliances when they are needed and to immediately switch them off when they are not required. Rational appliances have extremely quick heat up times compared to conventional appliances. This function significantly reduces waiting and set-up times when cooking. With the  VarioCookingCenter, production can begin virtually immediately so operators do not need to keep the cooking appliances warm in order have a hot cooking appliance available when needed or to be able to produce extra. 

Saving water and oil

With VarioDose, the automatic water supply system the VarioCookingCenter pans will fill with water with precision. Once the boiling process is completed the intelligent AutoLift function allows the user to work with multiple successive batches in one lot of water compared to traditional cooking methods where the water needs to be drained after each batch.  

Due to the highly efficient heating of the VarioCookingCenter and its large heat exchange surface, frying oil is exposed to comparatively lower temperatures than in conventional deep-fat fryers. This means the frying oil ages less quickly and its consumption is reduced significantly therefore less oil needs to be purchased and then disposed of. 

Energy Consumption  

Both Rational SelfCookingCenter and VarioCookingCenter are on the German-based HKI Cert database – a platform for catering equipment manufacturers to provide those buying or specifying modern commercial kitchen fair comparative energy consumption figures. 

In independent tests, researchers at Zurich University studied the energy consumption in a commercial catering kitchen before and after a major refurbishment.  They found that, by switching from conventional appliances to the latest Rational SelfCookingCenter and VarioCookingCenter multifunctional cooking appliances, the kitchen reduced energy consumption by 34% and water consumption by 53%.  

Contact number: +44 (0)1582 480388, freephone 0800 389 2944

Website: www.rational-online.com 

Twitter: RATIONAL_AG

Instagram: @rational_ag

Hoshizaki

As a brand known for its commitment to the environment and the future sustainability of the industry, Hoshizaki proudly offer some of the most sustainable appliances available to the market; combining the very latest technology with environmentally friendly, HFC-free materials. This has resulted in the launch of some remarkably sustainable appliances, including those in the new, award-winning Snowflake GII HC range. 

 Engineered to perform in even the most demanding of catering environments, the Snowflake GII HC series boasts a comprehensive range of refrigeration units in a host of sizes meaning operators are able to select units specifically suited to their kitchen space and capacity.   

 Operators can also significantly reduce their energy usage by choosing a sustainable ice machine such as the ones within Hoshizaki’s Emerald Class range of ice machines. Available in a range of sizes from undercounter to large stand-alone units, Emerald Class Ice machines have a negligible effect on global warming thanks to its utilisation of the naturally occurring R290 refrigerant. 

Contact number: 01322 616 900

Website: www.hoshizaki-europe.com

Twitter: @hoshizakigramuk

Instagram: @hoshizakiuk

Restaurant Supply Store

Change is coming to the world of catering disposables. Customers are increasingly rejecting single-use plastics in favour of biodegradable and compostable alternatives. As this movement gathers pace, it is the early-adopters who will win favour and inspire other businesses to join the green club – and restaurant Supply Store is here to help you take that step. 

Where to begin? Start with your most popular items coffee cups, and make the change. Sell a lot of coffee? Compostable cups and lids are already freely available and very cheap - try  R-SA484 for a matching set. If somebody were to discard these as litter, they would disintegrate into harmless biomass in just 12 weeks! 

Fiesta Green have created some beautiful, biodegradable new ways to serve food, made from palm leaves and other thin woods – like this tray for example ) or this chip cone: R-DK380.

For iced coffees and dessert bars, biodegradable cold cups and lids are the way forward (R-GH014 and R-GH016) because they are made from a corn-starch-based PLA plastic, which will disintegrate completely if left exposed to the elements. 

A host of eco-friendly catering products await your customers: for example, biodegradable takeaway boxes (R-GH026) and even biodegradable wooden cutlery (eg. forks:  R-CD903) will all help your establishment to do its bit for the environment. 

Contact number:  01375651 600

Email: sales@restaurantsupplystore.co.uk

Soil Association Green Kitchen Standard

Have you considered what impact your kitchen has on the environment? What about how this could contribute to your overall Corporate Social Responsibility goals?  So often food and food production are overlooked by sustainability teams and caterers. And yet around a fifth*of our carbon footprint comes from the food we eat. 

The Green Kitchen Standard (GKS) is an accreditation developed with The Carbon Trust. It recognises businesses who take positive steps to sustainably manage water, energy and waste in their kitchens.  To achieve the GKS accreditation, caterers must prove their environmental credentials. 

The GKS framework will enable you to manage your operation in a more sustainable way. We do this by helping you to engage staff in reducing usage of energy and water and minimising waste, as well as prioritising actions to think more sustainably.  

We’ll help you every step of the way with:  

• A supportive visit 
• An independent verification of your actions 
• Performance benchmark against similar settings 

GKS is the cost-effective accreditation that showcases your environmental credentials while saving money. 

For more information: www.foodforlife.org.uk/catering/green-kitchen-standard

Email:  clongden@soilassociaton.org

Contact number: 

Twitter: @SoilAssociation

Instagram: @soilassociation

Winterhalter

Brian Hannon of Super 8 restaurants is keen on Winterhalter’s sustainability expertise – and not only because of the dishwashers’ ability to save consumption of energy, water and chemicals.  “We only have room for a small clean up area at the Smoking Goat, so we chose Winterhalter’s PT EnergyPlus passthrough.”  This clever dishwasher captures the energy in the steam and wastewater and uses it to heat the incoming water, reducing energy consumption by up to 30% - and minimising waste steam.  “Being able to have that kind of cleaning ability so close to the dining area, without having to worry about excess steam affecting the diner’s experience, is exactly what we need.” 

Winterhalter is at the forefront of sustainability developments.  Its latest UC undercounter glass washers have redesigned wash arms that clean better but use less water – reducing operating costs by around 22%.  The latest PT passthroughs have optional driven rinse systems reducing water consumption by 18%.   

Connected Wash is Winterhalter’s system for remotely monitoring warewashers via the internet.  It can deliver hugely significant efficiency savings, for example by making recommendations on improving best practise, by highlighting potential component failures before they happen, and by analysing consumption figures.   

Website: www.winterhalter.com 

Email: info@winterhalter.co.uk. 

Contact number: 01908359000 

Twitter: @WinterhalterUK