Asian Box, a Vietnamese-influenced mini-chain with 10 locations in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, serves its food in eco-friendly and compostable containers. Its ingredients are sourced locally, never frozen and contain no hormones, additives, steroids, pesticides, or antibiotics. The chain is rapidly expanding - planning to add roughly six new restaurants per year - and CNBC recently named it number five out of the ten hot restaurant brands to watch. The restaurants also offers catering, with Big Box packages that come with favorite menu items like coconut curry tofu, lemongrass pork, or basil-lime shrimp, or customized items for special events.
How does the chain stay strong with its sustainability mission while meeting the needs (and taste buds) of its customers? Ashley Ceasar, the chain’s California Catering Director, oversees orders for ten stores.
Ceasar talked with ezCater about how Asian Box catering continues to develop their menu and ingredients:
As the restaurant chain grows, will Asian Box continue to only use local produce and make everything by scratch? Yes, Ceasar says - but without proper communication, this could be a challenge. “It’s important to keep the communication lines open with the suppliers to make sure the food chain is continuous. but it’s all positive in the end, because using local product guarantees the food’s freshness,” she told ezCater.
Ceasar encouraged other restaurants to begin to focus on sourcing honest and transparent ingredients. “Start with asking your current purveyors about alternatives and inquire about local, fresher ingredients. Don’t use products with any fillers or additives,” she said in the article.
Asian Box is just one of many fast-casual restaurants that have begun to focus on increasing their commitment to environmental responsibility. “The trend is more of a movement now,” chef and World Pizza Champion Glenn Cybulski told Environmental Leader earlier this month. “Restaurateurs, we’re becoming aware of how important it is to decrease our carbon footprint and make sure that we are using sustainable products. And that includes the containers that our food goes out in.”
One recent - and widely publicized - example of this is the food served at the Super Bowl. The stadium’s food and beverage service provider Aramark said that they had made more than 70 different products compostable, including cups, trays, straws, and utensils. In a first for the big game, attendees could purchase pre-packed peanuts in compostable bags.
What happened at the Super Bowl is a reflection of a shift happening across the food service industry. The National Restaurant Association reports that, in its recent survey, 72% of operators buy at least some packaging and supplies that contain recyclable material. And 56% buy at least some certified as compostable.
However, certain challenges may be slowing the growth of such sustainable practices. Compared to many alternatives, foam offers better insulating capacity and costs less, says Bryan Buffalo, senior vice president of the fast-casual chain Nature’s Table, which has around 75 locations nationwide. Foam also tends to weigh less, meaning lower freight costs, he told Environmental Leader.
