Restaurants: Ways to find returns on sustainability investments

Context

To better understand the top strategies that delivered a financial return across the food and agriculture value chain, Deloitte worked with CSB to utilize its Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI™) methodology and framework.

The study focused on 12 ROSI™ strategies and included a 25-question survey completed by 350 global executives and supplemented the results with interviews from leaders across the sector. The five value chain segments studied were processing, manufacturing, food services, restaurants, and retail.

Our research highlights a strong business case for investing in sustainability strategies across the entire food and agriculture value chain.

Here we highlight key findings for restaurants.

Restaurant value chain overview

The restaurant industry is highly varied (e.g., quick-service restaurants [QSR], full-service, fine dining), but all focus on providing food to customers as either a to-go or sit-down meal. They have a high level of end-consumer interaction, which is reflected in their top revenue-generating and cost-saving strategies.

Top three revenue growth strategies

What follows are the top strategies that led to revenue growth for restaurants:

1. Invest in employee well-being: Restaurants were the only value chain segment that chose this as a top strategy. Consumers’ dining experiences often depend on the quality and work of employees. Restaurants also have high levels of turnover,  so improving the employee experience can help lead to lower levels of turnover, retain institutional knowledge, and improve service quality.
2. Reduce use of harmful chemicals: Similar to upstream value chain segments (e.g., manufacturers) for which this was a top strategy, reducing the use of harmful chemicals and advertising the usage of fresher and more natural ingredients can help restaurants differentiate themselves and draw in consumers.
3. Protect and conserve biodiversity and ecosystems: Restaurants must work with upstream suppliers to implement this strategy, but restaurants that do can share positive stories about collaboration that may drive incremental revenue by differentiating their products from other restaurants.

Top three cost-saving strategies

What follows are the top cost-saving strategies for restaurants:

1. Sustainable and responsible supply chain sourcing: This is a critical strategy for many value chain segments to create a more stable and resilient supply chain. However, the way this strategy is implemented will look very different within each restaurant category—how a multinational QSR tackles this challenge would likely look different from how a single gourmet restaurant might approach it.
2. Provide healthy and nutritious food products: Regulatory requirements to disclose food nutrition metrics are a major source of cost savings from implementing this strategy. The growing focus on caloric intake and adverse health effects may require restaurants to rethink their menu items (e.g., by reducing salt and sugar), which could lead to decreased costs.
3. Invest in water stewardship: Fresh water is critical to all restaurant and kitchen operations, so strategies such as tracking water usage, installing water-efficient equipment, and introducing process changes to reduce usage can also help restaurants decrease costs.

The path forward

Restaurants’ constant consumer interactions give them the unique opportunity to communicate sustainability benefits directly to their consumers, as well as educate them about the key challenges facing the food and agriculture system and how their dining decisions can make an impact.

Restaurants need an engaged workforce in order to implement sustainability strategies, and employee well-being can both improve the customer experience and drive sustainability outcomes.

¹ Fielding Buck, “How Kevin Hart’s Hart House plans to grow the market for plant-based fast food,” Los Angeles Daily News, June 22, 2023.

^*All charts are based on data taken from the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business (CSB) report published in October 2024