Whether you’re ordering lunch for yourself or a family-style buffet for the entire office to enjoy, you shouldn’t have to sacrifice sustainability for a delicious meal.
Sustainable office events can be easier to plan than you think. Here are some ideas and information to help you plan your next earth-friendly office event:
Family-style presentation requires much less packaging and is set up for buffet style serving, which reduces food waste since people can choose their own portion sizes. Superfine Kitchen also offers sustainable, reusable platter services — we’ll drop the full platters off and even schedule a same-day pickup — no rinse or washing needed! We can also drop off extra containers with the delivery so you can send employees home with any leftovers, ensuring that no food is wasted from the event.
Ordering individual meals doesn’t have to mean trash can pile-ups full of plastic. By choosing a reusable container program, your office can prevent thousands of plastic takeout containers from ending up in landfills. To put it in perspective: if an office of 50 employees switches from single-use plastic to reusable containers, they could save approximately 13,000 containers—or about 700 pounds of plastic waste—in just one year. Clean plates, clean planet — that’s Superfine style!
Superfine Kitchen offers a reusable container program that will have your office covered from drop-off to pickup. Simply order your food, enjoy, then rinse your container and place it in the disposal bin provided by Superfine. Our delivery driver will come pick up the reusable containers so they can be cleaned and reused for the next meal service. Oh, and did I mention there are no additional costs?
At Superfine Kitchen, we believe in minimizing food waste as much as possible. As a small company with a big heart, we’re invested in making sure that extra food from events goes to local folks in need of a meal. At all events with extra food, we call donation services like ExtraFood (formerly known as Food Runners). Pick-up donation services like ExtraFood make it easy to get food delivered to those in need. You can even schedule pickups in advance or call for same-day pickup if you’re unsure on timing — although scheduling in advance is strongly preferred.
Donation volunteers will come right to your doorstep to pick up any extra meals, check them for quality, and then dispatch them to those in need around the city. ExtraFood’s contact information is 415-890-5432 (quickest) or donate@extrafood.org. You can also try Replate, Copia, or Chefs to End Hunger — all local to San Francisco.
The importance of composting cannot be stressed enough. In our kitchen, we compost as much organic material as possible, with compost bins outnumbering garbage bins throughout our facility. Composting organic materials creates nutrient-rich soil to return back to the earth and grow more amazing food to bring to your office.
For a more sustainable event, Superfine Kitchen offers compostable plates, cups, and utensils that are a much better option than wax-covered paper plates — and they look better too. Compostables offer a better solution for sustainability, and we’ve got you covered with all sizes. From happy hour snacking to full dinner plates, compostables are an option for any event.
If your office is small to medium-sized and has a sink or dishwasher, consider thrifting or purchasing a couple sets of reusable plates and bowls for staff to use at the office. Encouraging staff to bring their own plates, bowls, or reusable containers can help minimize takeout boxes in trash cans. You can even incentivize it with fun prizes for employees who use the least amount of plastic or single-use containers. Office sustainability can be fun and engaging!
Services like DishJoy wash and deliver dishes daily, primarily serving offices. DishJoy delivers clean, commercial-grade dishware in receptacles and removes dirty dishes to be washed — no dishwashing by staff required.
Programs like DishJoy reduce the amount of disposables used through commercial-grade cleaning and daily reuse. If you don’t have plates or bowls at your office already, or if your office is too large to manage in-house dishware, a dishwashing and delivery service is a great option to make the office environment more earth-friendly.
Kitchen tracks reusable usage for offices to make sure there are no lost or missing containers. This tracking system can also keep records of volume reduction and statistical changes in single-use plastic usage. Your office can use this data to give out prizes or host parties once a certain threshold is reached. Encourage staff to order a Superfine Kitchen meal in a reusable container instead of grabbing a ready-to-eat lunch in a plastic box or takeout container. Consider throwing a Superfine pizza party as a reward and a way to boost employee engagement!
Volunteers receive tutorials on food safety and how to properly make pickup calls with the priority always being the recipients. They ensure that the donated food is of highest quality and follows safety regulations. Donors are educated about what is and isn’t acceptable for donation. For catered food, they require that it be packaged, labeled with a date, and chilled within two hours after serving time. They can even provide resources to chill food on-site, if necessary. The minimum pickup is 25 meals and they serve both San Francisco and Marin County, nourishing our local community one drop off at a time.
One common misconception is that offices with high populations can’t participate in reusable programs. Superfine Kitchen has implemented a reusable program for offices with over 100 people and is currently launching one for an office with 200 employees. If we can feed hundreds, we can do it sustainably.
Another misconception is that reusable programs are hard to implement. We’ve successfully incorporated reusables into office routines within just a week! Our drivers handle the pickup, and employees barely have to change their habits — just toss the container in the reusable bin
instead of the trash or recycling.
Superfine Kitchen is a Certified San Francisco Green Business! Beyond composting to minimize waste, our kitchen operates on a largely seasonal schedule to support Northern California agriculture and lower our carbon footprint. Through our sustainable approach, Superfine Kitchen has kept thousands of plastic containers out of landfills and significantly cut down on excess waste by crafting meals to order. Instead of bulk-prepping ingredients that might go unused, our intentional ordering system ensures everything is made with purpose. By sourcing seasonally, we support Northern California farms, reduce emissions, and contribute to a stronger, more resilient local economy.
Keep it green one forkful at a time with Superfine. Contact us for more information today!
