Brown’s Hotel uses IMC to manage its food waste
Brown’s Hotel first opened its doors in 1837 and is an icon for world class hospitality.Background
Together, catering establishments in the UK are estimated to produce around 4 million tonnes of food waste per year and restaurants and hotels are amongst the largest contributors. Indeed, research undertaken by Oxford Brooke’s University* has established that around 40% of the hospitality industry’s total waste is food.
Much of this waste food is collected from the premises for disposal to landfill or alternatively transported large distances to municipal composting or anaerobic digestion plants which, whilst considerably more environmentally friendly than landfill, nevertheless involve the burning of
fossil fuels and the emission of greenhouses gases to transport it as well as incurring considerable cost to the waste producer.
Brown’s Hotel
The legendary Brown’s Hotel was first opened in 1837 and was London’s first hotel. Located on an 18th century street in the heart of Mayfair, just a few steps from Piccadilly and the boutiques of Bond
Street, the hotel has an unrivalled reputation for providing 5 star, understated service, comfort and privacy. Amongst its 117 guest rooms are 29 suites including 2 Royal and 2 Presidential Suites.
In 2010 the hotel received a large number of awards and accolades including Conde Nast Traveller UK’s “Top UK Leisure Hotels” and “UK Best Hotels for Ambience and Design.”
A member of the illustrious Rocco Forte Collection, Brown’s Hotel has recently undergone a £24 million renovation, a key factor in which was the hotel’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint by introducing practical, efficient recycling solutions for as many of its waste materials as it could.
HIX at The Albemarle serves lunch and dinner to 80 diners.The food waste problem
High end dining is no stranger to food waste production; plates and dishes may be returned empty from customers’ tables but the incredibly high standards in the kitchen result in a relatively large amount of waste during preparation and, to a lesser extent, plating up. An audit of the food waste volumes being produced at Brown’s Hotel indicated an annual amount of food waste of around 52 tonnes. The hotel was paying around £21,000 per year to have this waste collected and taken to landfill.
A broad range of the alternative solutions available was reviewed of which any that did not involve the waste providing a recyclable value were quickly dismissed. Similarly, the hotel researched solutions whereby the waste was effectively destroyed using equipment installed in the kitchen. These were ruled out due to their high energy consumption and running costs, demands on natural resources, especially water, and the lack of a proven track record of success. According to General Manager, Stuart Johnson,
“the hotel management felt it important that we were able to visit sites and talk to other users of the equipment operating in our industry. We did not want to simply send the waste down the drain where, in our case, it would have no subsequent value. We took note of the large number of awards that have been won by IMC over the past few years for its work in providing food waste management solutions to catering establishments. IMC’s solutions also enjoy the credibility of being based on in-depth academic research so More intimate fine dining can be served at lunch time in The Roosevelt Room and, in the evening, the Clarendon Room. Despite the cramped conditions IMC’s food waste macerating and dewatering unit takes up no additional floor space. we felt very confident in our final selection.”
Despite having identified IMC’s food waste to compost system as its ideal choice, the hotel accepted that an In Vessel Composter on the hotel premises would be impractical. Instead, IMC installed a Food Waste Disposer and Dewaterer in the kitchen in order that the dewatered waste could be taken by a specialist food waste collection company to a large scale Aerobic Digestion plant, located a short distance away on the outskirts of the city.
Corporate & Social Responsibility
Unable to fulfil its original goal of recycling all of the food waste on site, the hotel was still able to meet its environmental commitments by knowing that the food waste is being used as a valuable resource rather than being simply transported long distances to landfill. Stuart continues; ”We take our corporate and social responsibility very seriously and are committed to maximising our
recycling and resource recovery rates. We anticipate that future legislation may even ban the disposal of food waste to landfill. We know that our waste food is now being recycled so we can be confident that we are already complying with the spirit of such legislation.”
Chef appeal
Headlining at the hotel’s award winning restaurant until his recent move to Syon Park was Executive Chef, Lee Streeton, who started his career at the Savoy Hotel, under the tutorage of Anton Edelmann, himself a user and advocate of IMC food waste management systems. Both Lee and his former colleague, Marcus Verberne , the new Executive Chef, have witnessed the staff quickly adapting to the system and making full use of it which they claim has made life in the kitchen much easier for them. “It’s amazing just how much food waste we produce, which we estimated to be around 50 tonnes per year,” says Marcus. “The fact that we offer a high-end dining experience has no direct correlation with producing minimal waste. This system has helped us audit much better what waste we were creating and to put in place measures to reduce it. This has a direct impact on the hotel’s bottom line so, as I see it, everyone wins.”
Financial benefits
Whilst environmental goals were a key driver in selecting a solution provided by IMC, cost was still the over-riding factor. Head of Finance, Darran Cottington, was ultimately responsible for the choice of system and was hugely impressed with the fast rate of return he would achieve with IMC’s solution. “Food, along with many other wastes, was being collected 364 days a year and we were spending a small fortune on disposing of it. By using IMC’s waste macerating and dewatering unit we have reduced our food waste disposal costs by a factor of
5. By focussing on food and dealing with it as it’s produced, we have freed up other waste materials such as plastic, glass, paper and cardboard that are now no longer contaminated by the food waste and can therefore be processed as dry recyclables. We would all have Lee Streeton, former Executive Chef at Brown’s Hotel, now at Syon Park.
loved to have composted our food waste on site but what we have here is, in our opinion, the next best thing. Recycling our waste materials and recognising them, wherever possible, as a valuable resource will become a key part of our everyday life as we increasingly feel the effects of dwindling natural food and energy supplies.”
IMC’s award winning solutions
IMC’s food waste management solutions have been widely recognised by the hospitality, waste and environment industries and have won a substantial number of awards over the past few years including, in 2011, two prestigious Rushlight Awards, otherwise known as the “Green Oscars”.
Philippe Rossiter, Chief Executive of the Institute of Hospitality, saw first hand the Awards being presented to IMC at a ceremony in Westminster at which Sir John Beddington, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, was guest speaker. “IMC has been at the forefront of providing catering establishments with practical food waste management solutions and richly deserves these Awards. It is vital that the hospitality industry has access to cost effective, practical and efficient ways in which it can reduce the environmental impact of its operations.”
IMC has been manufacturing commercial Food Waste Disposers in the UK since 1956 and is widely acknowledged as Europe’s leading manufacturer, supplying over 50 countries world-wide. Its waste macerating and dewatering equipment can be supplied as part of a stainless steel Waste Processing Station which can be fitted with a sink or tabling and can be built to meet the individual circumstances of most commercial kitchens. The company’s food waste to compost recycling solution is the result of a 3 year research programme completed by Imperial College, London, and has been adopted by a wide variety of catering establishments in the UK and abroad including hotels, restaurants, corporate offices, universities, prisons, Ministry of Defence sites, shopping centres and even stadia and entertainment complexes such as The O2.
*Source: Oxford Brooke’s University Details correct at time of going to print March 2011.
Return On Investment
Equipment cost £5,000 Savings made £16,800 pa ROI – less than 4 months.