As you head into the busiest restaurant day of the year, Mother’s Day, don’t forget to think about how your restaurant can better care for Mother Earth. 

Eco-friendly practices and sustainability are on your customers’ minds, so it’s time to pay attention. According to Eat restaurant reservation platform, Gen Z diners—the youngest demographic of independent diners—would even pay more at a restaurant that uses sustainable practices. Even small changes can make a huge difference in your environmental impact, your customers’ experience, and your bottom line. 

Below we’ll explore a few sustainable or more eco-friendly practices and product swaps that your restaurant can make this Spring. 

Limit Paper Towel Use

Paper towels may be convenient, but they’re also a drain on natural resources, not to mention an ongoing expense. Consider places in your restaurant where you can replace paper towel use with alternatives. 

• Invest in more bar towels: Quality bar towels last for years and are more absorbent and tear-resistant than paper towels, so they work better for cleaning up spills and wiping down glassware. 
• Invest in more kitchen towels: Increase your supply of back-of-the-house kitchen towels. Making more available each shift will reduce reliance on paper towels. You can even create a labeling system, designating certain towel colors or sizes for specific tasks. 
• Use cloth cleaning towels: Rely on cloth cleaning towels, such as microfiber towels or cotton towels, for cleaning restrooms, dusting, and other cleaning duties.

If you can’t forgo paper towels entirely, opt for natural-colored, unbleached recycled paper towels. Paper towels made from recycled paper require less water and energy in the production process and reduce deforestation by diverting waste from landfills.

Switch to Cloth Napkins

Restaurants with dining rooms should consider cloth napkins. Not only will they make your dining room feel more elegant, but they’ll also significantly cut back on paper waste. Paper napkins get left behind on tables and thrown away without even being used. 

Cloth napkins are larger and more absorbent. And customers know that they’re eco-friendly. A survey from Milliken found that 84% of consumers associate cloth napkins in a restaurant with being environmentally friendly. 

Our Signature Plus Napkins offer a long product life and stain-release properties. Plus, they can be washed at lower temperatures, which reduces the environmental impact of the laundering process. 

Use Reusable Table Linens

Cloth table linens are far more environmentally friendly than single-use plastic or paper placemats or table coverings. As a bonus, they’re also far more sophisticated, boosting your dining room’s appearance and your sustainability efforts with one product swap. And, compared to bare tabletops, cloth table linens keep a table cleaner and help absorb noise in a dining room.

Reduce Food Waste

Take steps to reduce food waste and better manage your restaurant’s resources. Simple steps like predictive ordering practices, crafting menus with through-lines, and setting food waste goals can help your restaurant reduce waste and save money. 

Giving unused food a second life can also help you make a difference in your local community. Donate unused food to local charities, food banks, or soup kitchens. You can also start an on-site compost bin for scraps, coffee grounds, and other compostable goods. Connect with a local community garden, school gardening club, or compost center that would benefit from free compost. 

To reap the most benefits from adopting these new practices, communicate what you’re doing to your customers. A survey from Simon-Kucher found that out of many different sustainability practices, restaurant customers most cared about food waste management. 

Source New Products Responsibly

When you’re ready to make some changes to your sustainability efforts, trust Venus. We manufacture textiles responsibly so that when you purchase from us, you know what you’re getting and how it was made. Here are just a few ways that we prioritize sustainability in our manufacturing process: 

• We harvest rainwater to avoid tapping into the clean drinking water supply 
• We have a water treatment program that prevents our manufacturing facilities from contributing to the world’s pollution problem
• We use wind energy and other renewable energy sources  to run our plants
• We support farmers with fair prices
• We design quality products with longer product lives

Have questions? Contact us by calling 800.421.6599. You can also reach us online by submitting our contact form.