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 qualitycutlery, hot and cold cups,tableware and takeaway boxes brings you the high street retail lookto 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’sin-house Creative team can custom print a wide range ofproducts with low MOQs, using vegetable or water-based inks with a great print finish.
Requirements for more efficient use of resources in commercial kitchens arecontinually increasing. Processes need to be more efficient,which means space requirements, water and energy consumption as well as the use of rawmaterials 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 numberof 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 VarioBoostheating 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 electricallyoperated appliances when they are needed and to immediately switch them off when they arenot 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 theVarioCookingCenter, production can begin virtually immediately so operators do not need to keep the cooking appliances warm in order have a hot cooking appliance available whenneeded 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 theboiling process is completed the intelligent AutoLift function allows the user to work with multiplesuccessive batches in one lot of water compared to traditional cooking methods where thewater 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 conventionaldeep-fat fryers. This means the frying oil ages less quickly and its consumption isreduced 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 VarioCookingCentermultifunctional cooking appliances, the kitchen reduced energy consumption by 34% and water consumption by 53%.
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.
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, biodegradablenew ways to serve food, made from palm leavesand other thin woods– like this tray for example ) or this chip cone: R-DK380.
For iced coffees and dessert bars, biodegradablecold cups and lids are the way forward (R-GH014 andR-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.
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 operationin 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 waywith:
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.
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.
The Staff Canteen team are taking a different approach to keeping our website independent and delivering content free from commercial influence. Our Editorial team have a critical role to play in informing and supporting our audience in a balanced way. We would never put up a paywall and restrict access – The Staff Canteen is open to all and we want to keep bringing you the content you want; more from younger chefs, more on mental health, more tips and industry knowledge, more recipes and more videos. We need your support right now, more than ever, to keep The Staff Canteen active. Without your financial contributions this would not be possible.
Over the last 12 years, The Staff Canteen has built what has become the go-to platform for chefs and hospitality professionals. As members and visitors, your daily support has made The Staff Canteen what it is today. Our features and videos from the world’s biggest name chefs are something we are proud of. We have over 500,000 followers across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and other social channels, each connecting with chefs across the world. Our editorial and social media team are creating and delivering engaging content every day, to support you and the whole sector - we want to do more for you.
A single coffee is more than £2, a beer is £4.50 and a large glass of wine can be £6 or more.
Support The Staff Canteen from as little as £1 today. Thank you.
