Hotels and restaurants bottle their water in house

TORONTO—With plastic bottles fast becoming the latest environmental no-no, hotels and restaurants are looking for alternatives. DanaMark, a Brampton, ON-based company that has been providing water care products since 1975, is marketing two new products aimed at hoteliers and restaurateurs.

The first, a ‘bottle your own water’ system called ExuberaPro from EverPure, means restaurants and hotels can essentially distill and carbonate regular tap water into premium-quality water on site.  The operator can then dispense the water through an undercounter bar-tap system, similar to a beer dispenser.  This option provides “sizzle” and marketing opportunities, according to company president Robin Howlings.

Or, in banquet situations where marketing is not an issue, there is a countertop model similar to a coffee machine.  In each case, the water is served in carafes.

“The negativity of bottled water is spreading the way the smoking ban did—it’s only a matter of time before it hits restaurants,” says Howlings.

“Restaurants and hotels can bring bottling in-house for a fraction of the cost, and none of the environmental problems, of bottled water.”

EATertainment Inc.’s Bloor Street Diner implemented the system recently. They sell about 12,000 bottles of water per year. Customers benefit from the price—where Bloor St. Diner used to charge $7 per bottle, they are charging $4 with the new system. The restaurant’s “Green on Tap” initiative will give $1 from every carafe of water sold to Evergreen (www.evergreen.ca), a national charity currently transforming the Don Valley Brick Works into an environmental sustainability community.

DanaMark is donating approximately $500 from each unit purchased to the Brick Works as well, through the Robin S. Howlings Foundation, a charity named after Robin’s father and company founder, who passed away a few years ago.

“Customers no longer have the hassle of bottles. It’s like serving house wine in a decanter—it’s house water in a decanter.

The restaurant has glass carafes which they fill at the bar.  There are three options: ambient filtered water, chilled filtered water and sparkling filtered water.  The server brings it to the table in a decanter with a little paper tag around the bottle.
 
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is using the system in its hotels and resorts, bottling the water in the hotel and serving it in decanters carrying the company logo.
 
“This gives them the opportunity to eliminate millions of bottles, which have to be shipped in, handled, stored and disposed of,” says Howlings.

“We are looking to have restaurants in Toronto get on board and join us.  It’s good for the environment, good for business because food costs are way down, the customers appreciate it, and we give back to worthwhile community charities.

“Our objective is to be eco-conscious.  When my father died, we started the foundation, which has donated money to homeless shelters and Ronald McDonald House.  We were looking for something worthwhile in foodservice.  Our goal is to spread the funds around in the years to come—to help as many charities as we can.

“The ROI is huge – and that’s not even factoring in handling, labour and inventory costs,” Howlings concludes.

Enviro reduces reverse osmosis water waste

Reverse osmosis is something of an “evil necessity” for restaurants serving espresso, or using combi-ovens or steam systems, says Howlings.  It eliminates the scum that builds up on coffee equipment and can shut the equipment down.  Up until recently, reverse osmosis systems wasted an incredible amount of water — four gallons of wastewater for every one gallon used to make coffee.

EverPure, the same company that developed ExuberaPro, has developed a reverse osmosis system, christened Enviro, which flips the ratio around, so that there is only one gallon of wastewater for every four gallons of coffee.

According to DanaMark calculations based on Canadian water waste statistics, a restaurant using 70 gallons of water per hour could save 100,000 gallons of water that would normally go down the drain.  Translated into money, at the July 2008 water rates, this would save them $800 per year in water and $30 in energy charges.

Both Starbucks and McDonald’s are looking at the system.  “Starbucks is under huge consumer pressure not to put water down the drain” — so from consumer, operator, environment and community points of view it makes sense.