Operations

4 ways Just Salad is helping the planet

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April 18, 2022

Just Salad, a fast casual concept with a mission to make everyday health and sustainability possible, has released its Annual Impact Report detailing its progress toward achieving waste-free, climate-smart dining across stores during 2021, as well as several first-time actions taken to embed environmental sustainability into its operations.

"The time has come for radical solutions — to the never-ending stream of single-use waste; to the lack of transparency about the environmental impacts of our food and packaging choices; to the systemic obstacles to reducing food waste; and so much more," Sandra Noonan, chief sustainability officer, said in a company press release. "I want to thank the many partners who supported Just Salad over the past year as we sought to tackle these big problems."

Key highlights presented throughout the report include the following:

1. Carbon labels receive third-party verification
Just Salad partnered with Planet FWD, a carbon management platform, to verify cradle-to-grave emissions estimates for each menu item. They allow Just Salad to curate a Climatarianmenu featuring its lowest-emissions options and make targeted sustainability improvements to its menu overall, with carbon footprint per ingredient as a key consideration in recipe development.

2. Life-cycle analysis of reusable bowl reveals benefits
Just Salad's Reusable Bowl program has been available to customers for on-premise ordering across all locations since the company was founded in 2006, but last year it partnered with the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology to conduct a life-cycle assessment comparing the overall environmental impacts of its program against single-use disposable salad bowls.

3. Sustainable Packaging Solutions
As a result of its Reusable Bowl program, over three tons of single-use waste was avoided in 2021. As part of last year's internal audit guided by Sustainable Accounting Standards, the chain estimated that 91% of its disposable foodservice packaging was made from recycled and/or renewable materials, and 90% of its packaging was recyclable, reusable and/or compostable.

Just Salad also expanded its partnership with Deliver Zero to offer reusable containers for pick-up and delivery orders on DoorDash and Caviar. Through Deliver Zero, customers may choose to have their order built in a reusable DeliverZero container. Then, they may return it to the Just Salad location they ordered from or any store within the DeliverZero network.

Additional packaging initiatives detailed within the report include:

• Bring Your Own Cup: In 2021, Just Salad relaunched its Bring Your Own Cup program for smoothie orders, giving customers the choice to avoid single-use paper cups.
• Single-use utensil opt-out: On its app and orderjustsalad.com, customers are asked to indicate yes or no for disposable utensils. Just Salad offers a 10 cent discount on delivery orders that opt-out of utensils. In 2021, the utensil opt-out feature on orderjustsalad.com avoided over 2,200 pounds of unnecessary waste.
• Dine-in bowls: Just Salad continues to use dine-in bowls at locations with sufficient seating capacity.

4. First-time greenhouse gas emissions inventory and internal waste audits
Just Salad completed a greenhouse gas emissions inventory, conducted by the consultancy Green Places, across the entirety of its 2021 operations. It also invested in store waste audits showing significant progress toward diverting more than 90% of daily waste from landfills, and started selling surplus food via Too Good to Go to achieve quantifiable reductions in waste-related emissions.

Just Salad has over 50 locations across New York, New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, as well as 10 ghost kitchens in Dubai.