How Can a Chef Embrace Sustainability in the Kitchen?

Creating a sustainable commercial kitchen is a job for everyone working in it; this includes the chef. A chef can embrace sustainability in the kitchen with many different eco-friendly practices. As a chef, you’re the main star of the kitchen which is where a lot of these different tactics come into play. Thus, if you truly want to make your commercial kitchen sustainable, it’s vital the chef plays part in it. 

Making your commercial kitchen sustainable has a lot of benefits. It can come with financial benefits and also give your establishment a good image in the eyes of customers. So here are some practices for a chef to truly embrace sustainability in a commercial kitchen. 

Ways to Embrace Sustainability in the Kitchen

• Defrosting – There’s different ways to defrost meat in a commercial kitchen. A more sustainable way to defrost meat is by putting it in the refrigerator for approximately 24 hours. This will reduce wasting water but requires you to plan ahead so it’s defrosted in time for cooking. 


• Disposing of Waste – Everything from recyclables, food waste and regular trash will be produced in a commercial kitchen. It’s important a chef remembers to properly dispose of waste and gets everything into the proper bins. This means making sure the trash does get in the trash can and recyclables get in the proper recycling bin. A compost bin can be a great way to make your commercial kitchen more sustainable too, and can help enable you to have your own garden on the property for produce and herbs. 


• Turning Off Equipment – You may not always be using different pieces of equipment all the time. Things like stoves or food prep equipment doesn’t need to be left running if it isn’t actively in use. When you’re done using something like an electric meat slicer or a juicer be sure to turn it off to reduce power consumption. In Season Product – Ensuring your produce and meats are coming from a sustainable source is a great way to make your kitchen more eco-friendly. A chef can definitely play a huge role in this when it comes to deciding on the menu. When planning your menu, try to select items that only use in season produce and meats. It’ll also add seasonality to your menu and will make foods exclusive.You can have everything from a spring menu to a fall menu. 

Ways to Embrace Sustainability Outside of the Kitchen

Gardening

Depending on the property your commercial kitchen is on, you could potentially add your own produce and herb garden. You can always start with something small like just an herb garden to see how well it works for your kitchen. This is a great way to ensure your produce is sustainably sourced since you’re in control of the garden. There are some limitations though since you need to be sure you can have it at your commercial kitchen’s property. You also will need to delegate the work of maintaining that garden to staff. However it can definitely be worth it to ensure you have the freshest produce and herbs in the business. 

Be Proactive

Simply being proactive as a chef in the world of sustainability can go a long way. Doing so is as easy as just staying on top of the new trends or eco-friendly opportunities. Find time in your schedule as a chef to designate to doing research about new sustainable trends and practices that you can try to incorporate into the commercial kitchen you work in. 

Teach Staff

As the chef it’s important you’re someone the staff looks to for knowledge and insight. So make sure you’re telling them about ways they can take part in practicing sustainability in a commercial kitchen. Be sure they understand the methods your kitchen uses to make it eco-friendly and when you find new trends or opportunities you should share it with your team so they can be aware of it too.

Other Sustainability Tips

Using All Produce and Meats

This can be implemented in a few different ways to help reduce food waste. The first is when you find you got what’s called “ugly” produce in your shipment. Ugly produce is when it has cosmetic flaws to it but it still is safe to eat and has the same nutritional value. Some kitchens will throw these away and refuse to use them just due to their appearance. This creates unnecessary food waste. By using the “ugly” produce you can help ensure nothing is wasted and make your kitchen more sustainable. It’ll also save your kitchen money since you won’t be throwing away product. 

Another way to do this is by utilizing all the scraps. There’s a number of ways you can utilize that though so it doesn’t go to waste. One way is composting. As mentioned earlier if your facility has composting on site you can make sure your food scraps go into that so it doesn’t end up in a landfill. You can give it another purpose in your dishes too. Here are ways you can save money and be sustainable by using your food scraps:

• Make vegetable stocks from all your different vegetable scraps.


• Regrow vegetables with scraps from carrots or onions.


• Create pesto with green scraps like leafy greens and carrot tops.


• Use leftover meats from getting specific cuts like filet mignon for salads or other dishes.


• Use apple scraps to make your own apple cider vinegar.


• Create your own croutons with leftover bread crusts. 


• Use your peels from citrus fruits to create infused waters or herb scraps to infuse your olive oils. 

Know About Product

It’s important to stay informed about where your produce, meat and other food product is coming from. Keep up with everything from the manufacturer and the farm the food is from. It’s important to know about their own sustainability practices to grow, make and deliver their product. This way you can be informed about your product and if you find their quality or practices aren’t to your standards you can make changes to other providers. 

Equipment Maintenance

A commercial kitchen can be filled with all sorts of different equipment. You probably have everything from refrigerators to ovens and dishwashers to fryers. A lot of this equipment needs to be cleaned and given proper preventative maintenance. Doing so will help keep it running as efficiently as possible. This can thus help feed into keeping your commercial kitchen sustainable. When planning out jobs for you and your staff in the kitchen be sure to include routine preventative maintenance like cleaning condenser coils or gasket maintenance. Parts Town even has a collection of videos on preventative maintenance you can use to take care of your equipment. 

Create Meatless Options

Plant based meat is often far more sustainable than animal product. It produces less greenhouse gas, uses less water and creates less pollution. Thus having meatless options can be a great way to make your commercial kitchen more sustainable as a chef. It’ll also definitely help your establishments sales since it’ll accommodate some alternative diets such as vegetarians and vegans.