Greener food transport
I was interested to read your Green Month feature headed "Clean up your act" (Caterer, 19 October, page 50](http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2006/10/20/309542/Warewashing+and+laundry+How+to+save+money.htm)) offering solutions for a greener catering industry. It touched on many interesting points, and made the important observation that environmentally friendly is not necessarily synonymous with expensive. Being greener can save on costs, but it's making restaurants and hotels aware of this that is the challenge.
I was pleased to discover earlier this month that a substantial amount of time and money is going to be spent researching the effects of transport on the environment across various sectors, funded by a £2m grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. If anyone can benefit from this, it's the catering industry. Recent Government research into food transportation showed that only half the cubic capacity of vehicles is used - surely another area which can be improved upon, helping both the environment and bottom-line results.
Unglamorous as it is, logistics is often put to the bottom of the priority list but it seems that the discipline is at last being paid the right level of attention.
After all, if caterers can source a reliable logistics partner, willing to work with them to meet environmental goals and improve efficiency, then the catering markets will start to feel the benefits of a bigger, greener profit margin.
Mark Jones
Sales and marketing director, Crossflight
Have your say
[Click here to e-mail your comments. The editor reserves the right to edit comments.