With plastic bottles having become public enemy number one, foodservice
PURE AND SIMPLE
operators are turning to more eco-friendly alternatives to guest refreshment
Manger announced that it is installing free- to-use filtered water fountains, initially in 250 of its UK cafés. Pret has signed up to a location-based app run by water campaigner Refill, which shows users where they can fill water bottles for free. Citing research carried out by Refill, showing that 34% of adults in the UK felt uncomfortable asking to refill a reus- able bottle at a restaurant or café when they hadn’t bought anything, Pret has emphasised that the fountains are available for all.
THE CASE FOR FILTRATION
This increasing consumer expectation that they will be offered the opportunity to refill water bottles or be served tap water throws down challenges to a foodservice industry that generates considerable income from the sale of bottled water.
Offering filtered water is one way to add value, and Paul Proctor, managing director of EcoPure Waters, argues that there are sev- eral key reasons why caterers should invest in mains water filtration for their operations. “First, it delivers first-class, consistent
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chilled drinking water on demand for your customers. Second, it can improve profitabil- ity compared to buying-in bottled water. Third, it provides an opportunity to enhance your in-house branding by printing your name and logo on your bottles. And fourth, it reduces waste by eliminating single-use, bought-in plastic bottles from your organisation. “By filtering water in-house, customers
enjoy delicious drinking water, served with unrivalled purity, in your own-brand bottles. The bottles can be fitted with tamper-evident caps, which gives the security of a finished product for which customers are happy to pay, because they understand there’s a cost to providing the service and see it as a more sus- tainable option than bought-in bottled water. This offers a revenue stream that offsets any lost sales of bought-in bottled water.” Proctor suggests that filtered water can also be offered as a free guest amenity, whether on the table or in hotel bedrooms, at a lower cost than bought-in bottles.
The benefits of these systems can be demonstrated by the usage and payback
figures returned by Interstate Hotels & Resorts, which trialled the systems in more than 25 hotels, including Holiday Inns and Crowne Plazas. For example, after a 12-month period, Holiday Inn London Bexley had filled the equivalent of 33,700 750ml bottles – these are bottles that no longer have to be bought-in, stored and disposed of, and which would have cost £15,165 at £0.45 per bottle. Lumière, AA Restaurant of the Year for Eng-
land 2017 and a three-AA-rosette, fine-dining experience in the heart of the Cotswolds, has used an EcoPure Waters system since 2004 and is currently producing around 175 litres of chilled water per week, or 25 litres per day. “That’s about 9,000 litres of bottled water we’re not buying in every year,” says owner Helen Howe. “That’s a very significant financial saving
and a huge boost for our sustainability creden- tials. We use the tamper-evident bottle caps so we can offer our customers a fantastic fin- ished product for which they are happy to pay. Of course, we’re also re-using our own-brand bottles so we have no packaging waste or recy- cling issues associated with our water offer.”
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