It would indeeed be nice if the gas-guzzling eateries are turned into energy-efficient hybrids? The Food Service Technology Center in the US is just trying hard to do that. Compared to any other industry in America, the restaurant business wastes much more energy. According to experts, energy bill for commercial food service adds up to $10 billion annually and 80 percent of it is consumed by inefficient equipment usage.
In the United States, there are 925,000 restaurants and food service outlets. And their sales are expected to reach $511 billion in 2006, as reported by the National Restaurant Association, a trade group in Washington.
In the last two years, nearly 50 percent of restaurant operators have purchased equipments that are energy-saving, according to the association. But according to the Food Service Technology Center, the story is somewhat different. For it, the climb has been long and slow – in awaring the industry of its wastefulness.
Don Fisher, the center’s project manager said,
Our goal was to develop a robust procedure that would measure energy consumption and efficiency and at the same time document how many pounds of hamburger the appliance can cook and how uniformly… Then the restaurant operator’s goal is to reduce operating costs so they don’t have to charge so much for a hamburger.
Via: New York Times
