What's in store for Earth Day 2024 in on-site foodservice

Earth Day is right around the corner, and as such, foodservice providers and operations are paying special attention to their carbon footprint. The on-site foodservice industry is celebrating in various ways through themed menus, new climate forward programs and even a plastic-free day. Here’s a look into this year’s festivities.

Savor the Flavors of Mother Earth

Metz Culinary Management is celebrating Earth Day on April 22 across its corporate, healthcare, and educational dining sites with special themed menus. This year’s theme for the annual Metz “Earthly Eats” celebration is “Savor the Flavors of Mother Earth.”

“Our chefs have developed recipes that taste great and honor our planet's resources,” said Alexis Kwon, director of marketing at Metz Culinary Management, in a statement.  “Each dish reflects Metz's commitment to sustainability and regenerative agriculture, which utilizes farming methods meant to restore soil and leave our land, waters, and climate in better shape for the future.”

The recipes were created with five areas of environmental awareness and responsibility in mind—lowering greenhouse gas emissions by using plant-based ingredients, reducing transportation carbon footprint by supporting local farms, promoting water conservation through the use of beets, herbs, greens and ancient grains, encouraging sustainable agriculture with regenerative ingredients like lentils and potatoes and reducing waste by batch cooking daily dishes and adhering to established company-wide ingredient management systems.

Some of the recipes on offer this year include a Beyond Burger with avocado, buttermilk ranch dressing, tomato, red onion, and romaine lettuce, curry lentils with fried rice and chipotle chili.

In addition to the themed menu, the Earthly Eats promotion will also feature earth friendly giveaways including products like pencils made from newspapers, biodegradable pens made from corn and writing journals with paper made from apples.

New plant-forward programs

Food Management company, ISS Guckenheimer, is celebrating Earth Day with the launch of a new program dubbed Terra Fagioli, which translates to “earth” and “beans.”

The new program features climate-friendly and plant-forward dishes, including a variety of Barilla Chickpea and Red Lentil pastas, as part of a new collaboration. The program will debut on April 22 and will be available across the company’s dining facilities.

“The launch of this program is the latest example of living our environmental and sustainability values in alignment with our customers—in this case increasing menu options that have low carbon footprints while also delivering an elevated approach to nutrition and culinary innovation,” said Anne Moser, COO of ISS Guckenheimer, in a statement.  “We’re also thrilled to be expanding the depth and quality of our partnership collaborations, which for this program include Barilla, World Resources Institute and Coolfoods, and Beans is How.”

Trying out plastic free breakfast and lunch

Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) also has exciting plans in store in celebration of Earth Day this year. In honor of the holiday, on Monday April 22,  BCPS will go plastic free for breakfast and lunch. Finger-friendly foods, and paper trays and containers will be served instead of plastic ware. Additionally, bamboo forks will be on offer to high school students.

Earth Day Dinner by the CIA

The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) at Copia, an epicurean destination in downtown Napa, is hosting a special Chef’s Dinner in honor of Earth Day on April 20th. The feast will feature culinary talents of Bacoa from Puerto Rico by chefs Raúl Correa, René Marichal and Xavier Pacheco of BACOA.