Eco-Friendly Catering for a Better Utah

Featured Article on the “Clear the Air” Website

Culinary Crafts loves participating in Utah’s Clear the Air Challenge every year. In 2018 we were one of the winners of the challenge, and were featured on the Clear the Air website. We put fliers up at the office to remind our staff to log their trips. We also had a milk and cookies kick-off event where our employees snacked on car-shaped cookies. We even put a bike in our front office for employees to use instead of driving! We do similar things every year to keep our staff motivated and educated about the issue.

Our favorite way to reduce emissions (and something we rocked at during this year’s challenge) is van-pooling! Culinary Crafts offers bonuses to team members who van-pool, but that’s not why we do it. Not only does van-pooling help the environment, but it also builds team relationships. Those van rides are a highlight of the job!

Culinary Crafts’ efforts to improve air quality in Utah are ongoing. We will continue to do our best for Utah and are already looking forward to next year’s challenge.

Here's a note from Ryan to the staff encouraging them to support the Clean Air Challenge:

"Our long term vision for Culinary Crafts' impact is to make 'Utah an outstanding place to live, work, and celebrate.' And one of the biggest threats to quality of life and long term economic success in Utah is our bad air quality. Hence, efforts like the Clean Air Challenge are very important to our CC family.

"I don't want to end up skiing in a gas mask. Or worse, not being able to ski at all because there's no skiing industry left. I certainly don't want to see Culinary Crafts team members suffer because all of the great things that draw business to Utah are eventually outweighed by something like pollution."

We were one of the First Caterers in Utah to use Biodegradable Disposables at our Events

When we started using biodegradable disposables, other caterers called us to get our opinions about which companies offer the best biodegradable items. As a leading eco-friendly catering business, we were happy to refer new customers to our environmentally responsible suppliers!

The recyclable, biodegradable, and bio-compostable service-ware options we use are made from sugar cane fiber, corn starch, fallen palm leaves, and sustainably harvested bamboo. We never use styrofoam.

Not only are they made of renewable resources (fast-growing bamboo or fallen leaves), but once they’ve been used at an event we separate and send them off to our county compost service via Momentum One recycling, thus completing a sustainable cycle of event disposables. Our favorite suppliers right now are VerTerra and Bambu. They offer stylish small plates, eating utensils, “boats,” and chopsticks!

Energy-Saving features at our New Headquarters

LED LIGHTING - Our entire Pleasant Grove offices and commissary is exclusively lit with natural light and LED fixtures. There are no incandescent or even fluorescent lights. This has resulted in a dramatic reduction in electricity consumption and bulb replacement costs. It has also improved the work environment for employees and improved morale.

Our Tasting Room office and venue in Salt Lake City was 100% incandescent and fluorescent when we purchased it; it is now 50% LED.

We also now have enough electrical power in our Pleasant Grove parking lot to preheat the diesel engines in the fleet, saving fuel and reducing emissions during cold weather.

WIND POWER - Both our buildings are 100% wind powered through the Blue Sky Program. (We agree to pay a higher power rate to Rocky Mountain Power to access their wind farms).