QSR August 2022

DEPARTMENT CLIMATE RESPONSIBILITY

Shaking Up Sustainability The burger brand is tackling the topic with a multifaceted strategy. BY RACHEL PITTMAN

A mping up sustainability efforts is, in many ways, no longer an extra consid eration for brands, but instead a best practice. Sustainable practices are not only beneficial for the environment, but may also attract consumers, particularly in younger gen erations—this year, The NPD Group reported 16 percent of Gen Z customers prefer sustain ably sourced offerings in restaurants, as opposed to only 11 percent of older consumers. It’s no secret future consumers have the environment on their minds, meaning brands need effective ways to implement sustainability efforts into their operations. But attaining a more sustainable future for the foodservice industry will require more than a one-time, Band-Aid fix. For lasting impact and customer approval, brands can fight green washing and ineffective solutions by developing a multifaceted approach that employs a range of strategies. Enter Shake Shack.

“Since day one, we’ve always believed that we should ‘Stand For Something Good’—it’s really our founding philosophy, from sourcing premium ingredients and supporting employee development to deep community investment in the places we serve,” says Jeffrey Amoscato, the burger brand’s senior vice president of supply chain and menu innovation. The fast casual’s recent “Stand For Something Good” progress report—released in 2022 and covering developments in nearly every area of operations in 2021—details extensive, varied envi ronmental efforts. Ingredients are perhaps the most obvious factor in increasing sustainability; Amoscato says that, over the course of 2021, the brand bought over 50,000 pounds of regeneratively ranched beef, sold more than 150,000 veggie burgers, and piloted the use of NotMilk, a plant-based dairy substitute that acts and tastes like milk, in the brand’s first dairy-free chocolate shakes and cus tard in select markets. But beyond the category of ingredients, Shake Shack has mined many other sectors of operations for opportunities to go greener, establishing a range of long- and short-term goals. One of these short-term goals revolves around packaging, an area that has long been the subject of sustainability efforts, but that became an even more significant focus for improvement dur ing the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic-borne influx of to-go orders, single-use packaging elements were more needed Over the course of 2021, Shake Shack bought over 50,000 pounds of regeneratively ranched beef.

than ever. In 2021, Shake Shack worked to return to pre-pandemic packaging standards. “Packaging is an area where we’re seeing immediate opportu nities,” Amoscato says. “In 2021, we … [achieved a] decrease in the packaging being used to fulfill 72 percent of orders, compared to the height of the pandemic in 2020.” In addition to hitting benchmarks for use of packaging ele ments, the brand explored swapping existing packaging elements with options made of more efficient materials. Previously, Shake Shack’s to-go bags were made entirely of virgin paper, but last year the brand selected a new supplier that offered bags produced with 100 percent recycled fiber and 95 percent post-consumer content. The brand also launched a pilot of compostable, plastic-free, car bon-negative straws and cutlery in select markets. The new cutlery and straws are made of AirCarbon, a biomaterial made by Restore Foodwares that is a regenerative, compostable replacement for syn thetic plastic. The pilot began with six locations in California, New York, and Florida; now, more than half of the brand’s units have implemented the straw and the numbers are growing.

SHAKE SHACK / CHEYENNE M COHEN

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