Defining Food with Purpose
Executive Summary
11/19/19
Kiana Mays

In a fast-paced world, Americans enjoy restaurants as a convenient, time-saving alternative to
cooking at home. Restaurants also serve as spaces for people to take a break from their hectic
schedules and enjoy food in a comfortable environment. While restaurants provide an important
value to American society, they also contribute greatly to global sustainability problems. Fastfood and fast-casual establishments in the US overwhelmingly contribute to plastic pollution,
diet-related health problems, food waste, and unsustainable agricultural practices. Health food
restaurants typically cater to wealthier demographics, resulting in an accessibility issue for
people of lower-income levels. Even restaurant owners that want to make their operations more
sustainable face obstacles that may deter them from taking the first steps. The restaurant industry
is highly competitive, with 80 percent of restaurants failing within the first five years.
Additionally, many people perceive sustainability as being more expensive, which might make
restaurant owners fearful of taking on sustainability initiatives, as they may perceive them as a
risk to their business.
Even with overarching problems in the restaurant industry, there is no one-size-fits all solution.
For instance, a fine dining establishment would have to take a vastly different approach from a
fast food restaurant. Even two different fast-casual restaurants will have a unique set of
circumstances that will require different strategies for taking on sustainability initiatives. Even
though general frameworks and rating systems for restaurant sustainability exist, a restaurant’s
individual challenges must be addressed on a case-by-case basis. For this reason, I chose to work
directly with a restaurant in Tempe called the Bodhi, helping them develop and advance their
sustainability goals.
When I first met with the owners, I learned that they knew what sustainability was and why it is
important in a broader sense, but did not have the tools to address it in a strategic way. The
restaurant’s mission is to deliver healthy, affordable food, catered to its customers’ specific
health needs. When developing the goals of the project, we wanted to focus on highlighting the
connection between caring for one’s inner health and outer sustainability. This became the basis
of the community engagement aspect of the project. The Bodhi is a young establishment, having
only been open for about a year now, so it was important that this consultancy supported the
growth of the business, and that the sustainability initiatives could be replicated for future
locations.

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Following our initial meeting, we expanded on these ideas and created two overarching goals.
These goals were to 1) decrease landfill waste in the restaurant by 90 percent, and 2) create a 5year sustainable business plan. Our main intervention point with the landfill diversion goal was
to design a user-friendly waste stream for back-of-house and front-of-house that included
composting, recycling, and landfill receptacles. For the 5-year plan, I wanted to provide
recommendations that the Bodhi could implement immediately, as well as further down the line,
as the company grows, so I organized the plan by short-, mid-, and long-term initiatives.
To meet the project goals, several research methods were employed. I researched an assortment
of sustainable restaurant rating systems, case studies, and frameworks, which helped shape the
recommendations for the 5-year plan and inform the variables of the following analyses. A
market analysis was conducted to better understand the Bodhi’s position from a brand standpoint
and to see how sustainability could serve as a tool to differentiate their company from the
competition. I also conducted a current state analysis for the Bodhi’s supply chain, as well as
audits of the Bodhi’s current waste stream and building portfolio. These analyses helped develop
KPI’s for energy efficiency, cost-savings, local procurement, and waste reduction goals.
Based on the findings from the waste stream audit, I came up with incremental solutions that
would achieve a 90% landfill diversion by 2025. From the findings of the energy audit, I
identified energy solutions that would immediately save the Bodhi money on their energy bills,
as well as best practices and recommendations for lowering energy usage in the long-term. We
met our project goal of creating a 5-year sustainable business plan, and I have set the Bodhi up to
implement a composting program easily if they want to obtain their goal of 90% landfill
diversion in the restaurant. While we had a goal of implementing the composting waste stream,
we learned that it required a lot more financial planning and research which set us back.
However, with the goal of creating the 5-year sustainable business plan met, I feel confident that
the Bodhi has the tools and resources it needs to grow sustainably.

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