The Sustainable Shift Drink

Having been down for a while, www.sustainablefoodservice.com is being updated and posts are soon to come to The Sustainable Shift Drink.

I’ve posted some new, but older articles over of SFC. There is a new green recognition program out from the National Restaurant Association, which the Green Restaurant Association isn’t a fan of, our friends at LeanPath recently released a new food waste tracking program and a new study says restaurants are not doing a good job of marketing their sustainability initiatives.

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There has been some questions lately of the lack of posts on The Sustainable Shift Drink and also lack of news articles posted on sustainablefoodservice.com. The reasons are twofold.

First, in late April I took a position with a company called Advantage IQ. This is a company I had previously worked with as a subcontractor, and am now working full-time providing energy, water and waste (resource) management consulting services to their foodservice clients. AIQ’s bread and butter is utility expense management, but we provide a whole host of additional consulting services. Taking the new position has grabbed a lot of my time away from the website, but I do plan on maintaining both the website and blog as much as is physically and mentally possible.

The second reason is that a couple weeks ago my home was broke into and some dirty, motherless bastard of a methhead stole my Macbook Pro, which was basically the centerpiece of both the website and blog – web design software (the ability to update the site), blog software, RSS feeds (articles), internet access, etc. So, I am hoping to have a computer geared back up fairly soon, and able to start posting articles and opinions again. In the meantime, I may just post some articles on here since I can still access the blog without my dear old computer. Thanks for visiting.

Blog posts coming soon: the importance of utility data collection and eating invasive species…

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I’m not sure what prompted the sudden surge, but there have been three different reports (one, two, three) published lately on the green awareness of foodservice operators. Two of the reports are from England and the third is from the US. The reports analyzed the perceptions and practices of restaurant owners and managers in regards to sustainability. The reports surveyed a wide range of restaurants from “Mom and Pop” diners to billion dollar multinational franchises and food product manufacturers. The affirming outcome of the studies is that restaurants are very interested in sustainability though they sometimes don’t practice it or know how to practice it. That bodes well for myself and all the suppliers and vendors offering green products, but signifies that we have a challenge ahead of us.

For me, it is great to see that people are getting it. For instance, 94% of respondents in the American study said they would invest in technologies that reduce their energy consumption.

Efficiency is and should be a major goal in sustainability initiatives, but I am little disappointed to see water conservation a distant thought to many questioned in the study. Energy is always in the media and minds of many, but one way or another we can produce endless amounts of energy. We will never run out of energy, maybe oil but not energy. Alternatively, water is the single most important finite resource on the Earth, and fortunately for the restaurant industry water conservation is one of the simplest and most cost effective green measures.

The major barrier to sustainability becoming second nature seems to be the perception that anything green means spending money – lots of money. On the contrary, many green options for restaurants come from simple changes in practices and procedures that cost little to nothing. Even with expensive upgrades the long-term savings in energy, water or waste hauling cost always make the investment worthwhile. The restaurant business is an industry to single digit profits, but the industry as a whole needed to see the light that pitching pennies today loses them dollar tomorrow.

All the studies show a great trend for our industry. We are moving in the right direction of acknowledging sustainable operations, but many of us still need a little prodding to get the ball rolling. If you or your company needs a kick in the pants to get on the right track, give me a call and I’ll help you get on track to sustainability.

Tags: energy efficiency, restaurant trends, sustainable food, water efficiency
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The Hobart Center for Foodservice Sustainability recently announced that it is once again accepting applications for its annual foodservice sustainability grant program. The $5000 grant is awarded to the individual, company or organization judged to have the best-executed foodservice or food retail sustainability project of the year.

To learn more and to access the official application, visit www.hcfsforum.com.

Applications are due Aug. 31, 2010, so get cracking…

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UPDATE (3-1-10): The day I uploaded this post Barney Frank Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee announced that they will not pursue interchange reform legislation in 2010. I guess we’ll have to wait another year…or ten.

Now that the new credit card legislation has gone into effect for consumers, I’m wondering when retailers are going to get a break. Anyone that has had the misfortune of having to deal with a merchant services account knows that there is a lot of room for improvement if one looks at it from the cheery side, and down right monopolistic thievery if you see it more skeptically.

What does credit card reform have to do with sustainability? It really comes down to local commerce and really just sustaining an open business… 3% going to VISA and MasterCard is 3% lost from a local economy, and lost from businesses in an industry where 3% is the profit for the year. I’m sure it benefits a local economy somewhere, but not the majority. The new laws have made a lot of positive changes for credit card users, but I fear the new reforms that the credit card companies claim are going to cost them millions will just wind up on the bills of restaurants and retailers.

Similar reforms could benefit retailers as well. Clarity and communication are big pieces of the new standards, and if there is anything out there that could use some clarity it’s a merchant statement. I’ve seen some pretty good statements. Heartland Payment Systems does a decent job of producing a straightforward statement that you can understand with a little help, but I’ve also come across statements that the company’s own sales reps couldn’t understand, nor could their bosses. This should be step one. A statement that the people working for the processing company can understand. It seems so simple…

Fees are the other big part of the new reforms. Fees are what kill you with a merchant statement. Discount fees, transactions fees, international transaction fees, half cent fees, “oh that’s just a standard VISA, MasterCard fee” fees, the “oh I didn’t tell you about the .0945 cents per transaction fee” fee, and on and on as creative as they can be. The fees for merchant services should be clear, stated boldly in the contract and simple enough to calculate without an algorithm.

Finally, (actually I’m sure there are about a hundred more things – share your thought) there should be transparency in how they calculate the interchange rates. Currently the supposed competitors VISA and MasterCard independently come up with the same fees every April and October behind close doors. You as a merchant cannot find out how or why they calculate those fees or how they are apply them to your bill. Its just magic – they somehow come up with basically the same rates and noone needs to know how or why. Now keep on swiping those cards…

I’m sure we’ll see how the new reforms treat the business community soon enough, April is just around the corner.

Check out Unfaircreditcardfees.com for information on interchange reforms.

Tags: credit cards, local economies
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