Food for Thought
About Food for Thought
As a Chicago based woman owned and managed organization, Food For Thought’s nearly 40 years of best in market position attracts and maintains the finest teams in the industry. With the professionalism of a large company, the focus of a small company, and the concern for our individual clients, we have built a unique and leading organization in our industry.
Food For Thought is mindful of the fact that “we do not own this planet; we borrow it from our children.” Therefore, we are committed to promoting a healthy, clean environment. To achieve this, we continue to build our eco-friendly programs, striving to reduce water usage and lower our carbon footprint.
Realization of these goals is never complete as lower impact products and processes are always being created, reviewed, and initiated.
Staying Sustainable
Food Scraps = Compost
Our corporate kitchen does not have trash cans but compost bins at all stations. Through a partnership with Collective Resource (CollectiveResource.US), we are able to compost all food waste including bones and proteins. This adds up, reducing our total refuse load by 55,000+ pounds per year or we created 27.5 tons of usable organic compost.
Cooking Oil = Bio-diesel
With the help of Green Grease, we up-cycle over 1,344 gallons of cooking oil each year which is then converted to bio-diesel fuel this has reduce our waste load by 5.3 tons. Our goal to have vehicles that can then utilize this product. Why doesn’t everyone strive to do this?!
Cardboard = Cardboard
We also reduce our waste stream load by collecting, bailing and recycling our carboard packaging this totals a reduction of more then 45 tons or 90,000 lbs. Every ton of recycled cardboard the planet saves 400 gallons of oil and 1 ton of CO2 emissions.
Carbon Neutral Events
Carbon neutral events are achieved through our partnership with Carbonfund.org. This is done by calculating the carbon emissions per event based on number of guests, size of facility, travel distance, mode of transportation, and number of water bottles used. We then purchase carbon offset certificates representing the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions - a principal component of climate change.
Re-Usable Cups
At our corporate offices, we eliminated single-use cups and installed bottle filling stations. This simple act saves over 35,000 single-use cups a year. Simple and achievable by all? Yes. Next steps include expanding and promoting this simple idea among customers, business partners and suppliers.
SHEDD the STRAW
Food For Thought Event Group and Workspace Solutions was the first in Chicago to eliminate single-use plastic straws. When you visit our corporate offices, you are given a metal reusable straw to eliminate the need for single-use plastics where possible. With each person using approximately 250+ straws a year, it’s an easy opportunity to make an impact.
FFT Bike Share
We love bikes and think everyone should be riding. Our Bike Share program upcycles existing bikes (no need to buy new - there are more than enough out there!), services them, and keeps them on the road by allowing any team member to sign one out for an hour, day, or week. Keep riding!
Continue to Reduce our Impact to the Waste Stream
Eliminating waste is one of Food For Thoughts main environmental focus areas. We are making every effort to reduce the amount of waste generated from our operations. By 2025, our ambition is to reach a goal of only 15% of the waste from our corporate office, production facility and warehouse to reach landfill. We intend to do this by reducing production waste and increasing recycle content.
Photos by Lisa Blume, Slalom, Andrea Godfrey, Avery House, Carasco Photo, Christina Pawlak, Tori Soper