With the rise of eco-friendly packaging, it’s easier than ever to implement sustainable packaging into your business. Here are some advantages of eco-friendly packaging for restaurants and several methods to transition your eatery away from single-use plastics.

Delivery services and takeout meals became hugely in demand following the closing of a majority of indoor and outdoor dining due to the pandemic.

Restauranteurs must adapt to this kind of business model in order to succeed. One of those adjustments is the packaging of their food for takeaway.

Business suicide is short of implementing traditional plastic or styrofoam takeout containers with Millenials and Gen Z now demanding sustainability in all aspects of life.

Because of the pandemic, single-use packaging became even less popular globally, especially in legislatures.

Even the smallest burger joint or homemade cake business now has to deal with the new carbon emission rules.

Every restaurateur must work hard like every other business to find and utilise sustainable packaging supplies and eco-friendly procedures.

You don’t have to handle these changes individually, and they don’t have to contradict one another.

Now, more than ever, eco-friendly packaging is a breeze to implement into your business. Considering some advantages of eco-friendly packaging for restaurants, you can transition your eatery away from single-use plastics and onto a more sustainable consumable.

There Are Lots of Plastic Statistics That Show the Need for Eco-Friendly Packaging

Packaging poses its own set of problems for restaurants, whether sustainable or not. Between 2005 and 2018, plastic packaging waste generation in the EU increased by 21 percent to 17.2 million metric tons, according to Eurostat. Styrofoam, the go-to material for takeout for so long, takes 500 years to break down.

The issue is that these petroleum-based solutions perform better than any readily available eco-friendly alternatives.

Compared with eco-friendly options that are a lot more permeable and do not seal as well, single-use plastics keep food fresher for longer. However, the simple alternative is rarely the right one.

How COVID Increased Pressure on the Hospitality Industry

The hospitality industry was negatively impacted by COVID-19 and restrictions on delivery apps, but online food and grocery delivery apps grew as a result. Online commerce will only become a new business model in the future, according to Q-commerce.

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Many of us would find ordering food in an app and having it delivered in as little as 15 minutes an appealing solution to our time-poor problems.

The new model requires more consumption and waste, which means that the packaging used to deliver your food online is even more important for restaurant branding now than ever.

What are the Advantages of Using an Eco-Friendly Packaging for Your Restaurant?

Many businesses ignore an alarmingly neglected metric of customer loyalty. Getting a customer to make a second purchase from you is much faster, cheaper, and simpler than acquiring a new one.

Given that 79% of consumers rely on brands for their purchasing power and want those brands to make a difference, a change to a more eco-friendly image should be seen as an enabler of said brand loyalty.

5 Tips for Creating an Environmentally Friendly Restaurant Environment It can be difficult to create an environmentally friendly restaurant environment, but with these five tips you can achieve it.

Many entrepreneurs think of reusable packaging as a solution to ‘single-use plastic packaging.’ Remove the ‘single use’ from ‘single-use plastic packaging,’ and eliminate a large portion of the problem, right?

Takeout food businesses may not need sustainable and disposable packaging in e-commerce and other business models. However, it is the safest way to maintain food quality while adhering to food safety standards.

Consumers are willing to pay 25% extra for brands with some form of sustainable packaging policy, according to research. However, eco-friendly packaging costs more than single-use sustainable options.

The key takeaways are the following: Passing on the costs of sustainable food packaging to the customer may justify increasing the price, particularly if it is accompanied by the announcement of new packaging solutions.

How to Reduce Single-Use Plastic Food Packaging

The demand for single-use plastic products will not necessarily decrease as the pandemic fades and in-person activities resume. Here are a few ideas for brands that want to phase out plastics and go sustainable.

The item is compostable.

Sustainable packaging is the go-to option for eateries looking for packaging made from compostable materials. Sugarcane, bamboo, mushroom, or seaweed are the most common materials, but bio-packaging, which utilises post-consumer waste, is also common.

A compostable material can break down into nutrient-rich soil in as little as 12 weeks if placed in the right environment. Home compostable items may be certified, while industrial compostable goods may not.

Simplification is an act of reducing something to its simplest form or level of complexity.

Simplifying what you already use is the easiest way to restaurant sustainability. For instance, don’t include utensils in take-home orders.

If customers are eating at home, there must already be cutlery at home to use. To be sure, give customers the option of ordering cutlery if they need it. When requested, provide wood, bioplastic, or something else that can break down in landfills as cutlery.

Doing something beyond the expected.

Because business owners cannot always afford to switch away from disposable plastic containers, sustainable packaging may not always be feasible. Sometimes, they can make other sustainable choices.

Only 14% of restaurants in the United States currently compost their waste, according to the National Restaurant Association. If you cannot modify your packaging, composting is an excellent alternative.

When local stores in Krakow, Poland, finish their coffee, they dispose of the grounds in city bins. During the winter months, the coffee grinds are spread on footpaths instead of salt or sand to prevent ice from forming on the ground.

By reusing the waste of your business, this act helps the local community.

You should look into disposing of all products, not just cooking oils, too. The local sanitation department may reuse many cooking oils.

Next Steps

It’s a difficult eco-friendly packaging course to navigate. But it’s critical to remember that substituting something rather than creating it from scratch is usually cheaper and faster.

Eating out may now be less environmentally hostile thanks to the increasing popularity of materials like bamboo. Unfortunately, many managers are reluctant to change their practices, so keep that in mind.

Young people want to donate to a company that shares their concern for the environment.

The advantage of eco-friendly packaging is increasing customer loyalty in addition to the necessity of sustainable ingredients. It’s also time for you to upgrade your packaging.