"My Sustainable Restaurant": METRO launches digital platform for the hospitality industry

The impact of hospitality on global sustainability goals is substantial: one in three meals is eaten away from home today. At the same time, restaurateurs are currently facing many challenges and have to operate efficiently and profitably. This is where METRO comes in with its new digital guide "My Sustainable Restaurant". It illustrates in a playful way how restaurateurs can identify their sustainability potential and implement tailor-made measures. METRO shows that profitability and sustainability go very well together, especially in hospitality, and that commitment becomes a competitive ad-vantage: The "sustainable restaurant" saves costs, for example, when food waste, packaging or energy consumption are reduced and convinces guests who value sustainable enjoyment.

Sustainable business is an opportunity, many restaurateurs have long understood that. In order to support them in implementing this important step and thus make them fit for the future, METRO launched the interactive online guide "My Sustainable Restaurant". The platform can be used free of charge and offers guidance on how sustainability can be implemented in the restaurant business. Visitors can go specifically to individual areas of the "sustainable restaurant" and understand step by step what possibilities there are for sustainable optimisation and what advantages these offer the restaurateur.

In the digital guide, METRO highlights numerous topics from the three dimensions of sustainability environment, economy and social issues in a vivid and entertaining way: What does a sustainable menu look like? How can products be purchased responsibly? Which levers can restaurateurs use to further reduce their food losses? Where can energy efficiency be further increased? And why is it worthwhile for operators to take an active role in their community? The focus is always on the opportunities that arise from sustainability measures such as saving costs or retaining staff and guests.

"Our customers in the food service industry increasingly see sustainability as an opportunity to sharpen their profile and to become even more efficient and thus more profitable in their business operations. As a partner of the hospitality industry, we know their needs and at METRO we have many years of experience in implementing sustainability measures in all areas of our business", says Ivonne Julitta Bollow, SVP Corporate Responsibility & Public Policy METRO AG. "Our guide 'My Sustainable Restaurant' is therefore intended to offer restaurateurs tangible and concrete assistance in identifying and fullfilling sustainability potential in their own operations."

As a leading international food wholesaler, METRO has a responsibility to contribute to economically, ecologically and socially sustainable value creation. This is why, for example, METRO has defined a group-wide climate protection target for 2021, according to which the company wants to be completely climate-neutral in its own business operations by 2040 - among other things through measures such as phasing out fossil fuels and expanding renewable energies as well as switching to natural refrigerants in cooling. METRO wants to make a significant contribution to reducing food waste by halving food waste in its own wholesale stores and depots by 2025 compared to the starting year 2017/18. Packaging is another central topic within METRO's sustainability strategy with the aim of reducing the overall quantities and increasingly using paper-based packaging from certified sustainable forestry as well as materials with a high recycling content. In all of these topics, the company is concerned to work on solutions for the entire value chain and, in particular, to develop starting points for advancing sustainability in hospitality. The guide "My sustainable restaurant" fits into this strategy by raising customer awareness and providing assistance.

The guide is initially available in German and English, with further country versions planned.

METRO is a leading international food wholesaler which specializes in serving the needs of hotels, restaurants, and caterers (HoReCa) as well as independent merchants (Traders). Around the world, METRO has approx. 17 million customers who benefit from the wholesale company’s unique multichannel mix: customers can purchase their goods in one of the large stores in their area as well as by delivery (Food Service Distribution, FSD) – all digitally supported and connected. In parallel, METRO MARKETS is being developed as an international online marketplace for the needs of professional customers which has been growing and expanding continuously since 2019. Acting sustainably is one of the company principles of METRO which has been listed in various sustainability indices and rankings for many years, including FTSE4Good, MSCI, CDP and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. METRO operates in more than 30 countries and employs over 93,000 people worldwide. In financial year 2021/22, METRO generated sales of €29.8 billion. More information can be found at MPULSE.de, our online magazine.