If you own an organic food restaurant, you probably care about the environment. You have probably taken all sorts of steps to reduce your environmental impact, but if you’re looking for more ways to lower your carbon footprint you may need to look at your menu.
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That’s right, a more sustainable menu can do a lot to make your organic restaurant more sustainable. Let’s look at some examples of what you can do to create a healthy and sustainable menu for your customers.

Buy Local

Buying local ingredients is a great way to make your menu more sustainable. If you’re shipping in your ingredients from far away farms and suppliers, that creates a lot of emissions. Buying local food helps you lower how much pollution you’re causing, and as a bonus, local ingredients are fresh and delicious. Buying locally can also be a selling point to diners.

Offer Seasonal Items

If you don’t vary up your menu with the seasons, you’re missing out on a way to make your restaurant more sustainable. Cooking with seasonal ingredients is more sustainable because you don’t have to ship them in from far away and you can keep buying local.

Your customers will also love your takes on seasonal favorites, and these dishes could become big draws. If diners know that they don’t want to miss a particular season at your restaurant, they’ll keep on coming back.

Make More Plant-Based Items

Meat is delicious and full of valuable nutrients like protein, but the production of it also has a high environmental cost. The meat industry pollutes waterways, uses a ton of land, and creates emissions that contribute to climate change.

If you want to make your menu more sustainable, add more plant-based options to it. You can craft plenty of delicious, filling meals without using meat.

Grow Your Own Vegetables

If you have the room for it, planting an onsite garden is a great idea. You’ll always have a fresh stock of ingredients on hand, and diners will notice the quality of everything that’s being used to create their delicious meal. Much like buying local, this can also be a selling point for your restaurant.

Shrink Your Menu

You might also want to consider reducing how many items are on your menu. Having too broad of a menu means that you might end up with items that don’t sell as often. Ingredients used to make those items might need to be thrown out occasionally. That creates waste. Sticking to your best and most popular dishes can help your restaurant be more sustainable and fight against food waste.

Make Smaller Portions, if Needed

Pay close attention to how much of each dish diners consume. If certain meals are always resulting in leftovers left behind, that’s wasteful. Making smaller portions could be a good plan for a restaurant that values sustainability.

For More Sustainability Tips

If you want to learn more about organic dining and how your restaurant can be more sustainable, visit the Organic Restaurants blog! We have plenty of info that restaurant owners can use.