LIBERTY ISLAND
IT’S
EASY
BEING
GREEN
L
Michael Jones finds
out how an innovative
food waste management
solution helped reduce
Liberty Island’s carbon
footprint and deal with
Lady Liberty’s leftovers
PICTURES: MARK WITHERINGTON
44
ady Liberty goes by a number of
names. Modelled on Libertas, the
Roman goddess of freedom, her
full title is Liberty Enlightening the
World. To the French, she’s La Liberté
éclairant le monde. To the rest of the
world she’s simply The Statue of Liberty.
Designed by Frenchman Frédéric
Auguste Bartholdi, the neoclassical
sculpture was dedicated as a gift to the
United States from the people of France
in 1886. 128 years on, while still looking
resplendent on Liberty Island in the centre
of New York Harbor where four million
tourists visit her each year, the Lady’s
copper exterior is steadily turning a
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45
LIBERTY ISLAND
EnviroPure waste
disposal system
distinctly green hue due to
oxidation. But it’s not the
only thing on Liberty Island
that has gone green.
Waste not, want not
While Lady Liberty puts down one hell of
a footprint with a size 879 shoe, there’s
another weighty footprint on the island,
– of the carbon variety. Responsible for
up to 1,000lbs of food waste each day,
Liberty Island’s Crown Cafe restaurant
has become firmly committed to reducing
its own carbon footprint.
Evelyn Hill Inc, the concessioner to
both Liberty and neighbouring Ellis
Island, believes strongly in reducing the
food waste generated in its operations.
Named Operator Innovator for
Sustainability and Innovator of the Year
by the National Restaurant Association in
2012, Evelyn Hill recently installed T&S
Brass’s EnviroPure EPW Food Waste
Disposal system at the Crown Cafe.
The EPW system was the winner of
the 2014 Innovations Award from the
Asia Pacific division of FCSI, where it was
praised by the judges for revolutionising
food waste handling and heralded for
being economically smart and
environmentally beneficial.
The EPW is designed to break down
and remove food waste on site for
operators. The system uses a formula
called EP BioMix, a proprietary blend of
natural organic nutrients that react with
the naturally-occurring bacteria in food
waste to increase the metabolic efficiency
of decomposition. In short, the machine
converts food waste, including vegetables,
fruits, meat, fish, poultry, dairy products
and even bones, shells or pits, into
harmless grey water that is odour-free
and can be safely disposed of into existing
municipal waste water systems.
With decomposition typically taking
place within just 24 hours, the system is
being increasingly viewed in the industry
as a solution that not only ticks the
environmentally-friendly box, but also
46
one that can eliminate pick-up
and hauling costs for food waste
and reduce operational issues and
expenses relating to odour, pest and
vermin control.
For Crown Cafe, which can serve
up to 20,000 people per day in the height
of summer between Memorial Day and
Labor Day, the appeal of the EPW was
immediate. It was seen as an ideal
solution to help them reach their goal
of getting as close as possible to 100%
of food waste recycled each day.
A commitment to sustainability
Jeffrey Marrazzo, director of health,
safety, and environment for Evelyn Hill
Inc, has worked on the island for 20
years, serving for 12 years as building and
utilities foreman before taking on his
present role. He jokes that he has worked
with Lady Liberty since she was “about
this big”, measuring her at his waist level.
“We’re recycling around 98% of our
food waste,” Marrazzo says proudly as he
and his team demonstrate the EPW in
action to a group of observers made up
of executives from EnviroPure owners
T&S Brass, First Choice Catering Spares
and First Choice Environmental Solutions
(who distribute EnviroPure in the UK),
Wade Koehler CAE, executive director of
FCSI The Americas division, and myself.
Marrazzo has a crew of five working
on the EPW throughout the day,
supplemented in the summer to reflect the
seasonal tourist boom. “These five people,
they really make it work. Their primary
function is recycling,” says Marrazzo.
As Gabby, one of the Crown Cafe’s
recycling team, loads the machine with
leftover food waste, Marrazzo discusses
the various benefits of the system. “We
did 1,000lbs [of food waste] a day in the
summer and if we hadn’t done that we
would have had to have had five compost
totes transported to Ellis Island. Then our
hauler would have had to come to Ellis,
VIEW FROM THE CONSULTANT
John Turenne FCSI, founder and president of
Sustainable Food Systems in Wallingford,
Connecticut, gives his views on why waste
management should be high on the agenda for
all food operators.
Why is important for
operators to manage food
waste effectively?
Where should we start? Think
about the bottom line: financial,
environmental and social
enhancement. By better management of
planning, buying, preparing and serving food so
as not to overproduce in the first place, you
spend less money, make less of an impact on
what goes into the waste stream and landfill
and also can’t be accused of wasting good food
while there is still so much hunger prevalent
in the world.
What are the key factors for an
operator to consider?
The first thing an operator should do is
understand the hierarchy of managing food
waste. Here’s an order of the most important
factors: source reduction, feed hungry people,
feed animals, industrial uses, composting,
incineration or landfill.
Ensure you have a system in place to
accurately forecast and manage how much
food to prepare so as not to over produce. Ask
the logistical and budgetary questions of
managing waste. And be sure to have
a long-term training programme in
place for all current and future
employees to understand how and why
they will do this.
Are you seeing a marked increase in
operators managing their food waste?
Yes I am. I think part of it is the awareness of
the statistics of food waste (40% of food
produced goes to waste) compared with a
growing number of people who are food
insecure. When you sit up and look at the
waste, then you read about hunger, you can’t
help but think more sustainably. The other
part of the equation is the financial benefits
and ROI of smarter management. And lastly,
I hold out hope that most of us are beginning
to realise we have the responsibility and the
capacity to begin to change the world, one
meal at a time.
pick them up and then transport them to
their compost farm in Connecticut. So
the whole goal here was to reduce our
carbon footprint.”
The advantages the EPW delivers may
be clear from the outset: the consolidation
and compacting of huge volumes of food
waste; cost savings made on space;
dramatically reduced weight of shipping;
and preventing the risk of the unsightly
appearance of boatloads of food waste
being visible to customers. But for
Marrazzo and his team, one of the
overriding factors behind their purchase
of the machine was to create a culture of
sustainability that his team could buy into
for the future.
“It’s labour intensive,” says Marrazzo
on his team’s usage of the machine. “It
would be much easier just to throw
everything in the garbage and be done
with it. But we have great buy-in from
our staff. They are hugely proud of the
fact that they’re recycling 98%. I post the
numbers every month. The guys are
always looking for it. They want to see
that they’re 96%, 97%, 98%. I mean,
they get a bad month of 94% and they’re
like: ‘Are you kidding me? Where did
we go wrong? Did you count it right?’
We are always looking for continual
improvement so that we can make the
best choices.”
Keeping it fresh
One of the biggest logistical challenges of
being an island-based restaurant is getting
fresh food delivered five days a week, says
Marrazzo. “Everything gets delivered to
Ellis Island. From Ellis Island it gets
unloaded, transported to a freight boat,
loaded on the boat, transported to
Liberty, offloaded from the boat and put
on wagons, brought to the building then
placed in either the walk-in freezer or the
walk-in refrigerator. All our retail comes
at the same time, so it’s a big operation.
In the summer our guys are working on
freight six to eight hours a day.”
For Marrazzo, installing a system
such as the EPW is simply another way
for the culinary team on Liberty Island
to act responsibly and sustainably.
“When we have the opportunity to
improve our equipment, we go for the
most efficient that we can,” he says.
“We save water where we can. We
save electricity where we can. We make
sure we don’t overcook. We manage
the food line so we know what’s going
to go out, we’re aware of how many
people are still waiting in line
at Battery Park. It makes it all
manageable. Otherwise, we’re going
to be throwing a boatload of food
away,” he continues.
With the first boat arriving on the
island at 8.45 in the morning and the last
one leaving at 7 o’clock at night in the
summer, it’s essential for the team to keep
on top of the food levels, says Marrazzo.
“We produce a lot of food, so we don’t
really want to overproduce. We also want
that last customer of the day to get the
same quality of food as the first
customer. We want consistent
service all day long.”
Investing in innovation
For Claude Theisen, CEO of
South Carolina-based T&S Brass
and Bronze Works, the acquisition of
EnviroPure Systems Inc. in February 2013
underlined his firm’s commitment to
supporting foodservice professionals and
helping them find sustainable and
cost-effective solutions in the kitchen.
“We had started looking for
acquisition possibilities three or four
years ago, when one of our reps in
Chicago told us about this company,
EnviroPure,” says Theisen. “We drove
over to Chicago and met [president] Jim
Slanina, saw the facility, discussed the
>
i
FEEDING
THE CROWDS
Every day the Crown Cafe serves its
hordes of visitors with a menu
compromised of hearty soups,
paninis, hot entrées, sides, junior
ranger meals for children (a national
park initiative), seafood, pizza,
chicken, organic side salads and its
signature Bartholdi bacon
cheeseburger. Everything on the
menu contains detailed calorie
information and Evelyn Hill has a
clear commitment towards the health
and nutrition of its customers.
“We serve food to people from all
over the world. What we’re trying to
do is have a wholesome, organic,
healthy menu with lots of healthy
options for folks,” says Marrazzo.
“Our menus have all of the nutrition
information posted so people can see.
They have options for their meals. If
they want to have apple slices instead
of French fries, they can.”
“We’re trying to reduce the high
calories and high fat. We are very
much on the cutting edge,” he adds.
“We got rid of trans fats before trans
fats were seen as ‘a bad thing’. We try
to do as much local-grown and as
much organic produce as possible. It’s
important to the organisation that
we’re trying to help people have
healthy options.”
47
LIBERTY ISLAND
possibilities, went back, kicked it around
and decided it had real possibilities. It was
still very much a start-up and there was a
lot of risk involved, but we thought it was
worth taking the chance to see where we
could take it. They had sold several
machines. You could see the potential
benefit, what it could do and we were
very much attracted to the idea.”
For Theisen, the simplicity of the
solution was the key attraction. “You’re
converting garbage into grey water.
It essentially resolves the problem,” he
says. “You can dump it down a sewer.
It’s actually a lot cleaner than the sewers.
The ability to use grey water certainly
alleviates the huge amount of necessity
for landfills.”
The sustainability agenda and the
environmental imperative was also a key
element behind the deal. “It was a big
factor, but as all things, you look at the
product, the potential for it and all the
corollary benefits and whether it makes
sense to pursue it or not. The main thing
was making sure that the product was
something that had the potential to go
somewhere and we thought that it did.”
Theisen believes the biggest challenge
that EnviroPure face in convincing
“It would be much easier
just to throw everything in
the garbage and be done
with it. But we have great
buy-in from our staff. They
are hugely proud of the fact
that they’re recycling 98%”
operators that this is the right waste
management solution for them is that the
product itself still feels so advanced.
“It’s a new idea and concept,” he agrees.
“It’s not like you’re making a better
refrigerator or a better oven. It’s
something that’s brand new so it’s about
convincing people that it actually does
what you say it’s going to do.”
“It is a fairly pricey product to start
out with,” he adds. “It’s a big-ticket item
and that’s probably the single largest
challenge. Return on investment (ROI) is
a big deal. If there’s no ROI it rapidly
loses its attraction. The people we’re
trying to sell these to have budgets and
have issues to deal with. In addition to
outlining the environmental benefits, you
have to price it so it’s attractive.”
EnviroPure are making headway with
installations of the EPW system in a wide
range of different catering facilities such
as schools, prisons, restaurants and
hospitals across the US (including the
kitchens of the Montefiore New Rochelle
hospital in the Bronx area, which we also
visited on our trip). A further venture into
the UK via First Choice Environmental
Solutions has also brought good initial
results (see box below).
“You always want things to go faster
and to do better, but it is progressing very
nicely,” says Theisen. “I’m very optimistic.
I see this as filling a real need. As people
get more used to it, or they hear about it
more, I think it’ll be extremely successful.”
For Jeffrey Marrazzo and his team on
Liberty Island, the success of the EPW has
already justified the investment they made
in it. “When I started in this role seven
years ago we were at about 70%
recycling. I in no way, shape or form take
credit for it. I just give the guys the tools
and the opportunity to do it and they go
with it,” he says.
The opportunity to rethink how
they manage their waste has ensured the
Crown Cafe now has “as little impact
on the environment as possible,” says
Marrazzo. No wonder Lady Liberty
looks so serene.
VIEW FROM ACROSS THE POND
John Whitehouse, managing
director of First Choice Catering
Spares Ltd in Cannock, UK,
discusses why they partnered with
T&S Brass to bring EnviroPure to
the UK.
“We’ve always prided ourselves on
being ethical and professional and
we saw the same values in T&S
and I think they saw that in
us too. Claude [Theisen]
is the type of man that
goes by his word. He’s
very loyal once he’s
committed and we’re
very loyal too. We’ve seen
growth year upon year since
we’ve started working together.
“First Choice never wants to get
48
involved with selling catering
equipment or even servicing
equipment, because it’s not what
we do. We’ve very neutral because
we only supply spares, so we don’t
impact any of our customers’
business models. Spare parts is
where we’re going to stay but there
are ancillary products that fall
outside normal catering
equipment, which our
customers find difficult to
get and where those
synergies occur we have
a look into them.
When T&S Brass bought
EnviroPure they asked us if
it had some legs in the UK.
We saw nothing like it in the
marketplace. Its main USP is the
fact that you put
food waste in one
end then you don’t
have to think about
it. Plus, it’s a
bespoke unit, there
isn’t a one-size-fitsall approach, which
seems to be the
norm in the
marketplace. I also
think it’s definitely
cost efficient.
“People in the UK don’t really
understand the waste bills they
have. They’re not recorded the
same way that they are in the US,
but there is an increasing need to
be aware of what we do with our
waste from an environmental
perspective. The development in
EnviroPure at the moment is
predominately in wet systems, but
there is a dry system that may
evolve in the UK too, depending on
legislation that might make us
adapt it for dry waste.”
For more go to foodserviceconsultant.org