Since installing an HVAC unit powered by heat pump technology at one of his Dunkin’ units in San Antonio, Sean-Paul Ferrera began saving approximately $1,000 a month on his utility bill.
The new HVAC, which was installed in April 2023, also helped Ferrera decrease energy use at that Dunkin’ by 60%. And that location isn’t Ferrera’s only one to cut down its energy consumption of late.
Ferrera owns six Dunkin’ units in Texas, and over the past three years, utility costs for five of his stores have been reduced by at least 10%.
This cost savings is, in part, thanks to Dunkin’s partnership with Budderfly, an energy efficiency technology company. The companies’ partnership began three years ago, and is currently in a pilot phase.
Since partnering with Budderfly, Sean-Paul Ferrera has seen at least a 10% reduction in utility cost at each of his Dunkin' locations. | Photo courtesy of Sean-Paul Ferrera
As a part of the collaboration, Budderfly now manages the energy infrastructure in Ferrera’s Dunkin’ units, monitoring energy use and upgrading various systems, including HVAC. The company's services have saved five of Ferrera's stores a total of 576 megawatt hours of electricity, according to Budderfly, which said that equates to 408 megatons of carbon emissions.
Sustainable technology companies like Budderfly are leveraging their skills to make it easier for restaurants to be environmentally conscious. Here’s a look at how they’re doing it.
Budderfly’s holistic view
Budderfly takes a wide-ranging approach to energy reduction, considering environmental impact and analyzing the refrigeration units, lighting and insulation.
“You can't manage what you can't measure,” said Al Subbloie, CEO of Budderfly. “So, we will submeter each facility, which gives us a good breakdown of where energy is actually being used.”
From there, the company then determines where to make changes.
“They came in, after an initial survey, they determined where they were gonna see the greatest net benefit from an energy savings standpoint, so they re-lamped stores, they re-lamped my parking lots in some cases,” Ferrera said. “They put individual energy monitoring on every circuit inside of my restaurants to better understand how we, as Dunkin’, are using energy, how each [piece of equipment] is using energy.”
Budderfly’s services come with no upfront costs. Instead, the tech company invests in the facility’s energy infrastructure and makes its money by splitting the energy savings with the restaurant. The idea, according to Subbloie, is making it easy to do the right thing.
“One of the first things [operators] say is, ‘This is too good to be true. What's the catch on it?’” noted Subbloie.
Ferrerra said that the partnership with Budderfly provided tools he’d likely not have access to otherwise.
“Coming from large-scale construction and engineering, building management solutions were big in airports and seaports, but when I got into this very small space, it’s just not something that you can afford to do,” he said. “But Budderfly gives us access to that, all those tools that your average franchisee or restaurateur is not going to be able to access with the margins that we see in our industry.”
Not only has Ferrera saved money and reduced his restaurant’s energy use with heat pump technology, but the donuts taste better, and the store is more comfortable for customers, he says.
“It works very, very well. So, my location where we have it, temperature stays stable all the time,” Ferrera said. “It’s a constant 72 in the space, we don’t get the swings up and down, which traditional AC forces you to have because the system runs then it stops.”
In addition, the new HVAC system is approximately half the size of the old unit.
The new system also pulls moisture out of the air, according to Ferrera, which helps the store remain at a consistent humidity level. As a result, Ferrera said the bakery products are lasting longer and stay fresher.
In addition to the heat pump technology, Budderfly uses an energy recovery ventilator approach, which separately manages airflow.
Starting next year, Subbloie hopes to roll out the heat pump-powered HVAC to somewhere between 25% and 80% of Budderfly’s customer base.
Copia’s food recovery network
Other technology companies help operations focus on the issue of food waste.
Copia is one such company. It offers its clients a fully automated food-waste tracking, prevention and redistribution platform, attacking waste from multiple angles.
According to Kimberly Smith, CEO of Copia, simplicity and convenience were key considerations in developing the technology.
“Our goal is to make it as simple as possible for businesses to do the right thing,” Smith said. “And so, that carries over into our technology. We regularly talk about how convenience is a critical factor in supporting adoption for technologies like Copia.”
Copia clients can track food waste with an app for the back of house, as well as donate surplus food to local nonprofits.
Jeff LaTulippe, senior vice president of growth and innovation at True Food Kitchen, a Copia client, described the company as similar to a DoorDash or UberEats for food donation.
When a restaurant employee would like to make donation, they simply request a pick-up. The app then assigns a courier to pick up the order and deliver it to a local nonprofit. LaTulippe noted that the only feedback he’s received on the program is that it’s very easy to use.
According to Smith, Copia’s technology presents numerous benefits for foodservice operations.
“We’re making a positive social impact for communities in need by diverting perfectly edible surplus food; we are reducing carbon emission offset, so Scope 3 emissions and also returning meaningful tax deduction, so there’s a financial ROI for the businesses that work with us as well,” she said. “It’s a win-win for everyone.”
Additionally, Copia has a 99.9% match rate, which means if a business has food to donate, Copia can nearly guarantee it will find a home for that food.
Tenzo’s forecasting tools
Forecasting tech can also help operations prevent food waste and save money.
One UK-based company is doing just that with a system that helps restaurants forecast 30% to 50% more accurately, according to Elizabeth Norton, senior marketing manager at Tenzo.
Tenzo uses AI algorithms that look at historical data sets as well as seasonality, events and weather to provide restaurants with a report that predicts how much inventory they should order.
“Tenzo is what we call a restaurant performance OPS platform, which basically allows restaurateurs to make data-backed decisions in real-time for their businesses, so they can improve performance in the day-to-day,” said Norton.
The technology is mobile-first—Norton said that 70% of Tenzo’s users access the platform on their phones, making it “ideal for busy restaurateurs who are kind of always on-the-go: operators, directors and managers who have to move from site to site.”
When it comes to sustainability, Tenzo’s technology has shown results. Norton said that one site was able to its decrease food waste by 80% just by increasing the accuracy of its food orders.
“Our goal is to reduce 800,000 tons of food waste by 2025 and save the restaurant industry £100 million in costs and that's through using this AI algorithm forecasting platform to give restaurants an easier time kind of choosing the right food and ordering the right amount and not having to throw away huge garbage cans full of food,” said Norton.
Norton said that Tenzo differentiates itself from other forecasting companies by being easily integrated into tech platforms restaurants may already use.
“You sign in and all of your data is adjusted and put into one easy place to see without having to like switch back and forth to other different platforms and have a list of Excel sheets to try makes sense of,” he said.
Managing data
One thing most of these technology companies have in common is their ability to capture valuable data. Budderfly, for instance, provides its customers with details on how their energy savings translate to reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Ferrera said this data is easily to access and understand. It also helps the team grasp what changes need to be made to reduce energy use and cut costs.
“The Budderfly solution is not just, hey, we’re saving a couple of dollars. It’s really about, how do we make this sustainable long-term,” he said.
Similarly, Copia provides its restaurant customers with an array of information, including how many pounds of waste they diverted from the landfill, how many meals were donated and what their carbon emissions offset is.
The Cheesecake Factory, for instance, has tracked the impact of meals it’s donated using Copia.
“In 2022, we donated more than 570,000 pounds of food to more than 700 local nonprofits, diverting it from landfills to give to those in need,” said Nick Sterling, director of sustainability at The Cheesecake Factory. “This helped to avoid almost 2.5 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.”