In today’s world, sustainability is quickly becoming an agenda priority for many corporate foodservice operations and pantries/breakrooms. The push to cut down on non-recyclable waste, save energy, and offer sustainable products is ramping up. Businesses are increasingly recognizing the importance of reducing their environmental footprint and embracing eco-friendly practices that incorporate health and wellness.
With that goal in mind, Hydr8, a company dedicated to providing smart and sustainable replacements for workplace beverages was born. The portfolio of solutions has now expanded under the Elimin8™ umbrella. The company’s latest innovation is debuting their innovative and patent pending Zer0 Waste Pantry™ that offers the hospitality professional a turnkey, sustainable and measurable solution for their break-rooms and pantries.
“Our goal at Elimin8™ is to deliver a completely organic client-facing experience in the corporate pantry or break-room,” noted RJ Bianculli, Elimin8™ Managing Partner. “The elimination of coffee pods, beverage cans/bottles, snack packaging and non-compostable/recyclable disposables significantly reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfills.”
The Zer0 Waste Pantry™ provides a complete service of high-quality break room products (including coffee, water, ice, and snacks) sustainably and cost-effectively while still delivering what Hydr8 calls an “elev8ed” experience for guests while providing metrics that include energy saved, emissions saved, and landfill waste diverted.
“We understand the importance of tying sustainability and health/wellness together while still delivering a top of line experience cost effectively,” states Ralph Marucci, CEO and Co-Founder of Hydr8. “The technology we leverage in our units not only fully purifies our water, but adds electrolytes including sodium, magnesium, potassium, and calcium which maximize hydration, health, and wellness while completely eliminating the need for 5-gallon-jugs or single-use bottles.”
For operators looking to cut down on waste, the most obvious place to start is by eliminating packaging. Bottles, cans, coffee pods and snack packaging make up vast amounts of waste in corporate/college cafeterias and break rooms. In fact, Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour and most of them are thrown away while 95% of what is recycled never sees a second life.
With regard to current research around microplastics, reducing the amount of food and coffee that is encased in plastic is beneficial from a health standpoint, too. This is where the Zer0 Waste Pantry™ starts—by eliminating plastic, metals, and non-compostable individual snack packaging.
Eliminating these methods of packaging is better for the product itself, too. Take an office water cooler, for example—not only is it far from eco-friendly to continuously buy and dispose of plastic jugs of water, but the water that comes in those jugs is often of low quality, not to mention encased in plastic that can leach into the drinking water. The Zer0 Waste Pantry™ offers the ability to enhance the office water supply with minerals that may be lacking from other commercial water sources and provide unlimited high quality water while eliminating deliveries and the need to stock and store all of these goods.
Bianculli and the Elimin8™ team have brought both vision and innovation with their approach. The company is at the forefront of using more sustainable disposables as well; sugarcane, bamboo, and bioplastics such as PHA are all in the running for use by Elimin8™.
Current clients look to Elimin8™ for more than just packaging solutions, however. In looking at the bigger picture, the U.S. is the #1 trash-producing country in the world at 1609 pounds per person per year. This means that 5% of the world’s people generate 40% of the world’s waste.
“There’s a strong demand for experts to consult on everything from scope 1 and scope 2 energy usage to sustainable sourcing strategies, to waste reduction,” said Bianculli. It’s more important than ever for businesses to improve and quantify their sustainability efforts, which is why clients are coming to Elimin8™ for their expertise. They’ve even started partnering with larger companies to build these sustainable practices directly into their buildings. Bianculli noted that Elimin8™ is currently working with a number of architectural firms to specify these services directly into clients’ buildings in the renovation or building phase.
The biggest step, according to Bianculli, is consolidating assets. “You wouldn’t believe how much equipment most companies have just sitting unused in their break rooms or are needlessly pulling energy when sitting idle,” he said. “The Zer0 Waste Pantry™ was built to streamline and simplify the amount of units needed in a pantry. This makes the installation easier for our clients and helps reduce their asset and maintenance costs.”
Elimin8’s Zer0 Waste Pantry™ is revolutionizing the way operators and clients think about their foodservice and pantry operations with the goal of becoming the standard practice within every major corporate facility.
Contact them today at Hydr8.nyc to learn more about how they can transform your workplace refreshments.
