Foodservice Equipment Journal – August 2019

Oliver Rosevear: I also sit on the
energy side of things, but the waste
side of things as well. For the next
12 months, a lot of our focus will be
around food waste and packaging, and
how we can start to leave less waste in
our stores. I think there will be a real
interest around how we start to reuse.
It was interesting seeing Waitrose
announcing their use of reusable
packaging in their stores, but we have
to think about how we start to bring
that into the restaurant trade.
I think there’s been a big focus over
the last 12 months around consumer
use of packaging, but it strikes me
that actually there’s a huge amount of
packaging that we use back of house,
that we’re not seeing. So how do we
start to utilise equipment to really try
to drive that forward and reduce our

the kitchen has changed dramatically

since I started 20 years ago. The

attention to the ingredients we’re

using and how we work with them, and

also we have a central kitchen which

is fantastic for us from a consistency

point of view. So it’s how we use that in

the most efficient way.

We don’t want to take all of the

production out of our stores because

it’s really important to me that we’re

making fresh food in the restaurants.

But at the same time, you can’t deny

that having it done centrally is more

efficient, so again it’s a balancing act.

Around the targets you’ve set

and the areas you’re focusing

on, how have you built the

business case to enable you to

make the changes you need?

James Taylor: First of all, we’ve

seen 10 years like-for-like consecutive

energy reduction so we’re pretty

proud of that, but it makes it harder to

I THINK A REALLY

IMPORTANT PART

OF SUSTAINABILITY IS

THAT STORYTELLING

ELEMENT, SAYING ‘THIS

IS WHY WE’RE DOING

IT’ AS OPPOSED TO

JUST ‘THIS IS WHAT WE

WANT YOU TO DO”

use of packaging, and also increasing

the redistribution of food as opposed

to wasting food.

Martyn Clover: Over the last couple

of years, a big focus of ours has been

on the packaging side of things; the

consumable, the front of house, and

so on. Now I’m looking more at the

back-of-house side of things, and its

more kit-focused. We use three or four

main bits of kit that do most of our

work in the kitchens and they probably

haven’t changed massively in the last

10 years. So it’s asking the questions:

what is out there? How is technology

changing? What are the options we

could utilise now that would help from

a sustainability point of view?

But balancing that with the fact that

having the same kit we’ve had all these

years is really good for consistency.

What I don’t want is 20 different types

of cooker, so it’s a real balance between

those two factors. From a behavioural

point of view, I think how we work in

James Taylor, Oliver Rosevear and Martyn Clover discuss sustainability during a Commercial Kitchen panel session chaired by Clare Clark.

James Taylor, Head of Overheads

Purchasing, The Restaurant Group

Oliver Rosevear

Head of Environment, Costa

Martyn Clover, Head of

Food, Tortilla

ON THE PANEL

http://www.foodserviceequipmentjournal.com August 2019 | Foodservice Equipment Journal | 21

PANEL DISCUSSION