Sustainability is an increasing priority for business – driven by the increasing cost of energy, placing pressure on business budgets; by legislation and regulation; and by consumer demand, with GenZ in particular wanting to buy from ethical businesses who are playing their part to reduce their carbon footprint.
QSRs therefore have multiple reasons to drive down their energy consumption, eliminate waste and reduce their use of paper and plastic. Technology can play a vital role – and in particular an IT hospitality platform can help you to transform your operations, meet your energy-saving goals and show your customers that you are delivering great taste without costing the earth.
Let’s check out five ways that hospitality technology can help your QSR to take your sustainability to the next level.
- Digital Receipts: Power and paper savings
Many QSRs still issue paper receipts – so for the energy and sustainability-conscious, this is a key area to tackle. Offering digital receipts has multiple benefits for QSRs:
- You save the energy cost of running the printer - whilst thermal printers are relatively low in energy requirements, having multiple printers (including printers in kiosks) running throughout your opening hours does add up. Add in the fact that QSRs tend to have multiple outlets and the overall opportunity for saving on power becomes significant.
- You save on the cost and the environmental impact of purchasing thermal printer paper.
- You enhance customer service as many consumers actively prefer digital, and all appreciate being offered a choice.
Efficient POS Integrations: Lowering energy consumption by eliminating unnecessary devices
Online ordering has become integral to QSR operations, but many restaurants still receive them on a separate terminal. This means that every single store in your QSR business has an additional device, drawing on power and pushing up your electricity bill. But an integrated IT platform that directly inputs online orders into the POS means that you no longer need a dedicated online order terminal. You can remove the device and make significant power savings in the process.
Of course, you also get the added bonuses of saving space, freeing up staff time now that they’re no longer re-keying orders, and ensuring 100% accurate orders by eliminating human error.
- Smart inventory management: Reducing food waste
In QSRs, one of the biggest sustainability challenges is the food waste, due to poor inventory management. Overestimating demand can lead to oversupply, resulting in unsold products being thrown away, which not only wastes food but also money and resources. The challenge is to avoid over-ordering without going too far in the other direction and finding yourself unable to serve customers because you have run out of key ingredients.
Implementing a technology-driven inventory management system can dramatically reduce waste, without the risk of running out of stock. Smart inventory management tech will give you visibility and control of your stock levels and help you to forecast how much you need of each item. It can even automate re-ordering when stocks reach a threshold level.
This means lower costs for you, and a reduced environmental impact associated with food waste and the energy used in storage and disposal.
- Digital kitchen management: Reducing errors and eliminating paper
Paper is not just used in a QSR for receipts - in many restaurants, paper slips are still commonly used to send orders to the kitchen. Not only does this use a lot of paper, but potentially leads to inefficiencies and errors – a kitchen slip can be very easy to lose! A digital Kitchen Management System (KMS) sends orders directly from the kiosk or POS to a digital display in the kitchen. This speeds up the ordering process, reduces wait times, enhances accuracy and saves the monetary and environmental cost of purchasing the paper.
- Digital loyalty programs: Reducing plastic waste
Many loyalty programs still use physical plastic cards. Not only do these contribute to waste and environmental harm due to plastic production and disposal issues, but they’re cumbersome to use and easy to lose! By moving loyalty programs to a digital platform, your customers can use their mobile device as their loyalty card. Through a loyalty app, they can earn, track and spend points find their nearest restaurant and receive special member offers. All plastic free. This reduces plastic waste from cards, and has the additional benefit of allowing digital communication with loyalty members, eliminating the paper, energy and cost physical mail promotions.
Lowering the cost of energy, materials and waste
Embracing technology in your QSR can be a valuable way to reduce energy consumption, eliminate waste, and streamline customer interactions. It’s a win win – reducing your costs, and delighting your customers with efficient service from a QSR that shares their passion for the planet.
