How Tech Helps Restaurants Go Green — and Save Green

This article first appeared in National Restaurant News.

Khachab claims that with smart food inventory management, an operator can reduce up to 80% of food waste. These types of sustainability software companies can even be crucial for independent restaurants like Von Elrod’s, which has not only gone paper-free but has also started to rely heavily on its inventory management partnership with Restaurant365. 

“We used to have the baker just estimate how many pretzels he might need on a particular evening, but now, with getting into inventory and sales tracking, we can be much more precise,” Holmes said. “Maybe we need 350 pretzels Saturday and only 60 on Tuesday, so we’re not throwing away pretzels early in the week, but we’re not running out by the weekend either. We can allocate it to the right times.” 

Holmes said that over the past two years, the restaurant has been able to drop 2% of its food waste, which, while a far cry from the 80% quoted by Choco, still comes out to about $1,500 saved per week.

Whether restaurants are investing in new sustainability technology to shrink their carbon footprint or to save money on their energy and supplier bills, it makes an impact all the same.

Read the full article in National Restaurant News.