Fort Lauderdale-based franchise Pizza Fusion has a rather lofty company motto: ‘Saving the Earth, One Pizza at a Time.’ Sounds tongue-in-cheek, but the young chain, begun in 2006, demonstrates its eco-friendly philosophy in some very specific ways, as first reported by Donna Boss in Foodservice Equipment and Supplies magazine.
- Pizza Fusion delivers its pizzas in company-owned hybrid vehicles.
- The chain builds all its restaurants according to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification standards set forth by the U.S. Green Building Council, offsetting power consumption with the purchase of Green-e certified renewable energy certificates.
- More than 75 percent of the ingredients for gourmet-style pizzas, sandwiches, wraps, salads and gluten-free brownies are organic and free of artificial additives such as sweeteners, pesticides, preservatives, growth hormones, nitrates and trans fats.
- Walls and countertops are made of recycled materials.
The company says it would like to pull all its units off the power grid someday, but ‘we’re many moons away from that,’says Ashley Rathgeber, Pizza Fusion’s supply development manager.
Perhaps, but this fledgling pizza franchise, which now has 16 restaurants in 8 states, is already significantly ahead in this regard over many much larger restaurant chains. This is a pizza chain to keep an eye on in 2009.
