Sustainable Practices decades in the making

A recent Technomic study asked consumers and restaurant operators to help define social responsibility and sustainability. Sixty-three percent of surveyed consumers said they are more likely to visit a foodservice operation they view as socially conscious. The study also found that operators say social responsibility and sustainability issues are important with reducing food waste and energy consumption being top of mind, while still maintaining profit margins. The foodservice industry is taking a greater interest in sustainable practices and social responsibility, and Manitowoc Foodservice is a fluent partner in sustainability.

We have been working both corporately and with our customers for the last decade to not only address sustainability issues for operators, but to increase our sustainable practices. “Producing foodservice equipment that provides the foodservice industry with energy and resource saving options is at the heart of what we strive for from inception to delivery” explains Caitlin Rodgers, Vice President of Global Marketing, Manitowoc Foodservice.

Here are some ways in which Manitowoc Foodservice is delivering on our commitment to being green practices.

US Green Building Council Member - As an active member of the council, Manitowoc Foodservice works to design products that support the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Through designing products that meet LEED certification standards, we are able to help restaurants in the process of obtaining LEED certification.

New Products Development - Manitowoc Foodservice has gone to great lengths to develop guidelines for the use of sustainable and environmentally friendly materials as part of the new product development process. These guidelines enable us to produce products that have extended product life, reduce energy and water consumption and use the latest in environmentally friendly coolants.

Safe Kitchens - We keep the overall safety and profit needs of our customer’s top of mind when developing new products. Innovations like fryers that allow for automated filtration of oil and clamshell grills decrease the likelihood of injury to back-of-house staff. Advancements in equipment controls have given operators the ability to ensure their equipment is functioning properly and will alert them when there is a potential problem to ensure proper service and maintenance is completed to keep employees from potential harm.

Packaging - Over the last several years we have been working to reduce our overall raw materials consumption through a reduction and recycling of packaging materials. Returnable packaging is one way in which we are reducing raw material consumption. Cleveland uses pallets received from suppliers to ship its products to customers, while some of our products have eliminated the need for pallet shipping all together, reducing the overall packaging materials used by 50%. Shipping equipment requires use of cardboard, but many of our facilities are using Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) or Forest Stewardship Certified (FSC) certified sources and have switched to double walled options.

Energy and Resource Conservations - Reducing overall costs for operators by producing equipment that is energy efficient and reduces the use of water and other valuable resources, is at the heart of our sustainability efforts. We partner with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide over 1,000 ENERGY STAR® rated products across 6 of our top brands to make choosing products that save energy and increase profit margins easy for operators. For those products that are not currently eligible for ENERGY STAR ratings, we have created the EnerLogic™ program that offers operators advice and energy cost calculators for our equipment.

Equipment Recycling - Great strides have been made to increase the product lifecycle of our equipment, and even greater efforts have been made in disposal of the equipment when its use has come to an end. Our customers can contract with Manitowoc Foodservice for installation of their new equipment and we offer the option to return, recycle and dispose of existing equipment. This process includes scrap and recycling in the local market to recover usable metal electronic components and wiring for reuse, reducing the actual product that needs to be disposed of in a landfill.

To learn more about our sustainability efforts and other green practices please visit the sustainability section of our website.