News

May 21, 2009

Restaurant Sustainability Practices Appeal to Employees, Guests

The bottom-line payback from being green is certain to please a restaurant’s accountants, but don’t overlook the appeal sustainability holds for potential employees and customers, advised participants in an NRA Show 2009 panel on the top-line benefits of being eco-minded. Hailing from places as diverse as the Burgerville quickservice chain and Chicago’s city hall, they detailed in "The Brand Impact of Going Green" how their organizations’ environmental and social-minded practices are delivering returns that may not be readily reflected in a straight business analysis.

The CEO of Vancouver, Wash.-based Burgerville, for instance, asserted that the chain has had an easier time recruiting restaurant managers and crew members because of sustainable practices like buying 70 percent of its supplies from local sources, using wind-generated electricity and composting. In his definition of sustainability, Jeff Harvey also included such personnel-focused initiatives as providing healthcare insurance to virtually all employees -- with the employee's contribution amounting to just $15 a month -- and providing continuing education.

“It attracts exceptional talent,” remarked Harvey. “We brought in 14 new general managers in two months of time,” a phenomenal feat by restaurant standards, he noted.

Harvey even attributed Burgerville’s average check of $8.40, a high mean by quickservice standards, in part to the chain’s sustainability efforts. “Why do people pay that much? Part of it is quality, but not all of it,” he said.

The real benefit of environmental and social responsibility programs, Harvey suggested, is engagement. With employees, “this doing something of meaning in their lives is why they’re going to want to come work for you,” he explained.

With guests, he said, the engagement “was not done with advertising. It was done through counter conversations between the employees and the guests.” There’s a story to the efforts, and that fosters a connection with patrons.

He recounted how the chain informed its employees of the health-insurance rollout by gathering them in restaurant dining rooms as customers ate their meals and listened. The guests were treated as insiders to the innovation.

Similarly, he said, Burgerville invites the ranchers who grow its cattle near the chain’s Pacific Northwest market area to come work in the stores once a year. They come outfitted in cowboy boots and hats and talk with patrons and employees as they draw milkshakes and work the drive-thru station.

Harvey noted that Burgerville’s turnover of restaurant management personnel is below 35 percent and that sales flow-through has increased about 5 percent since the chain decided to pursue what business gurus call a corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy. “Sustainability from our standpoint is just smart business,” he said.

Chicago, too, sees some marked advantages in making sustainability a part of the cityscape. David O’Connell from the city’s Department of the Environment cited a pledge by Mayor Richard Daley to make Chicago the greenest metropolis in the nation. The objective, he explained, is the quality of life that makes a community desirable, vibrant and economically secure.

Among the measures undertaken by the Daley administration is a streamlined permitting process for businesses developing a LEED-certified building. “You get a hand-picked group of expeditors to help you through the process,” which can otherwise be a long and complex one, O’Connell acknowledged. “If you have a silver [LEED] rating or above” -- the green-certification group’s premium designation -- “we waive all permitting fees,” a $25,000 savings.

He also cited such restaurant-specific steps as helping to form the Green Chicago Restaurant Co-op, an operator group that pools its green purchases to bring down the sometimes higher cost of environmentally sound supplies.

Kathleen Seelye, president of the foodservice practice for the kitchen design firm Ricca Newmark Design, noted that environmental considerations are pushing beyond considerations like equipment efficiency or water conservation.

Those sustainability issues are still critical, she stressed, noting that a single restaurant fryer can use as much energy as a whole American home. But the mindset now extends to matters like what kind of ice you use (nuggets are far more efficient to produce than cubes, she explained), or the comfort level for employees of the kitchen floor you install. She noted that flooring made from recycled automobile tires not only diverts those bulky discards from the landfills, but also eases the strain on employees who are on their feet all day.

“When we’re talking about sustainability, we’re not just talking about the food we serve, we’re talking about the sustainability of the work experience,” she said.