FOOD
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Pitching plastic: Restaurants look for ways to 'green' take-out boxes
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Several Madison-area stores are quietly doing their part to help reduce the amount of plastic packaging littering the landscape and going into landfills.
From the upscale French-style patisserie Sucre on the Capitol Square, to the friendly local Miller and Sons supermarket in Verona, there's increased interest in environmentally friendly food packaging, according to Kari Correia, who works in customer service at Kessenich's restaurant supply store in Madison.
Kessenich's, a treasure trove of kitchen gadgets, professional-grade cooking equipment and restaurant supplies, is an 80-year-old family business.
Products that the company's customers have begun asking about -- and Correia is encouraging them to try -- include bags made from corn starch and take-out containers that biodegrade, as well as cups and utensils created from sugar cane or corn. They look and function just like conventional plasticware, but can be put in the compost pile to break down into safe organic elements.
It's part of the store's overall push to help Kessenich's customers go green, she said.
"I want my kids and their kids to be able to fish and swim in the waters here in Wisconsin," Correia said. "For me, it's a real personal passion to try to help make it easier, even in small ways, for people to do the right thing for the environment."
The store is focusing on four areas: helping customers choose energy-saving equipment for their kitchens through Wisconsin's Focus on Energy initiative; offering more commercial cleaning supplies that are safer for the environment; emphasizing increased use of reusable food containers for restaurants; and providing more disposable products that are bio-based (made from non-chemical products like sugar cane and corn) and biodegradable.
"It seemed like the right time, and the right thing to do," Correia said.
Sucre packages its pastries in take-out containers that feel and look like paper but are actually created from sugar cane, and wraps its sandwiches with folded paper and tied with a string, an improvement over styrofoam containers.
Al Augustine, Kessenich's director of sales and marketing, said its effort to promote energy-efficient equipment for restaurateurs has lead to an uptick in Kessenich's sales, and savings for its customers.
"We've helped our customers earn over $30,000 in incentives on energy-efficient equipment, and they're also getting paybacks in reduced energy costs," Augustine said.
Laura Eyler, deli manager at Miller and Sons, said she was very open to Correia's pitch regarding environmentally friendly containers for use in the grocery's deli, even though the biodegradable products are currently about twice as expensive as the petroleum-based products.
"We were going through a lot of foam (polystyrene) packaging," Eyler said. "There are also some bans on plastic grocery bags. I think it's kind of moving that way, so why not get a jump on it?"
Eyler, along with store owner Carl Miller, said they have heard nothing but positive comments from customers about the changes, which have added a few cents in costs but have earned considerable customer goodwill.
"We've had a lot of good feedback. People have been thanking us for looking out for the environment," Eyler said.
Miller's has stopped using plastic bags as well, unless customers specifically request them. The store pays customers $.10 for each paper bag they recycle, and also sells cloth grocery bags.
"As much as things have changed in the last two years, it's going to be changing even faster in the future. Plastic in stores as we know it will be gone in five years," Miller predicted.
According to a recent National Public Radio story, there are five million fewer plastic bags used each month in San Francisco since that city banned their use at many stores last year. Dozens of cities in Great Britain have also banned petroleum-based plastic bags. Plenty of U.S. cities, including Madison, are also contemplating how to handle plastics.
Locally, a subcommittee of the Common Council's environmental issues committee is taking a look at the issue.
Amanda Sauer, local spokeswoman for Whole Foods, said the chain has eliminated plastic grocery bags at all its stores, and uses 100 percent post-industrial recycled resin bags in its produce department.
She also said the Whole Foods deli here began offering reusable plates and bowls that are washed at the store, and added that deli utensils are all compostable, as are the store's sampling cups.
Al Augustine from Kessenich's said he wanted to find out what happened to those compostable utensils and biodegradable packaging, so he buried a set of the table ware, a cup and a plastic bag in his garden compost pile about a month ago.
"I add clippings and scraps and turn the compost regularly for my garden," he said. "When I went to look for it last week, the cup was already pretty broken down, and I couldn't find the bag, or the utensils. If they're gone, it sure didn't take very long."
stroller@madison.com