Today is EARTH DAY!

What have YOU done for the Earth lately?

Native Maine is an industry leader when it comes to environmental concerns. We operate year round as a 'green' company and salute local restaurants that prepare locally grown food and have sustainable business practices.

Today, April 22nd is Earth Day! This is a great time for restaurants to assess what changes they can make to be more environmentally friendly. Restaurants use a lot of energy and produce a lot of waste. But with a few small changes, many restaurants can move one step closer to 'going green' and helping the environment.

Going green for a restaurant can feel like climbing Mt. Everest; insurmountable. Going Green takes time and patience. The good news is that a lot of Green measures are easy to implement and won’t break the bank. Here are a few tips that the Green Restaurant Association recommends for Going Green:

• Get rid of poly-styrene! Poly-styrene in most restaurants is found in the form of take out boxes, soup and coffee cups. Get rid of the poly-styrene, which never biodegrades and switch to recycled paper products.
• Install flow restrictors on faucets. A flow restrictor limits the amount of water used in hand washing sinks, on dish machines and dish sinks. You can save hundreds or even thousands of gallons of water a year by installing flow restrictors as part of a Go Green effort.
• Purchase local and sustainable foods. This means food products which support Maine’s long-term maintenance of ecosystems and agriculture for future generations. Native Maine promotes sustainability through our Maine farm-outreach program called wicked fresh Connect™. Other ways to go green include composting and recycling. Composting is not always a practical option for restaurants smack in the middle of a downtown, but recycling can be done most anywhere. Reasons why you should: We've heard the importance of eating seasonally, going organic or sustainable and reducing carbon footprints. Buying locally produced food accomplishes all these goals. Serving Maine farmed food supports the local economy, supports family farms and, most importantly, provides the freshest produce you can buy. Produce that is flown or trucked in creates greenhouse gas pollution, which contributes to global warming and air pollution. Most produce in the United States travels an average of 1,500 miles before being sold.

Items That Help Your Restaurant Go Green

If you are looking to open a restaurant and have the capital, or are in need of upgrades, consider purchasing the following items, which help restaurants save energy, money and the environment:

• Low Flush Toilets
• Energy Star Appliances, such as fryers, steamers, broilers, griddles and ovens.
• Energy Star Refrigeration- These models have better insulation and use almost half as much energy as older models.
• Energy Efficient HVAC.
• Energy Star Light bulbs- An Energy Star qualified compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) will save about $30 over its lifetime and pay for itself in about 6 months. It uses 75 percent less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb.
• Institute a full-scale recycling program
• Recycled printing- Use paper that contains at least 30% post-consumer waste. There are also paper sources that are 100% recycled, though they may not be available for all project sizes and types.

At Native Maine, we practice what we preach!

Native Maine Produce and Specialty Foods, LLC (NMPSF) is a leader in Maine’s efforts of recycling, reducing, reusing and re-designing to save the planet. There is no other produce or specialty food company in Maine or New England for that matter that shares our commitment to this cause. Here are a few steps that highlight our efforts:

Wasted Product

• 100% of inventory deemed “below our high quality standard” is provided to a local farm for animal feed. No inventory is wasted.
• Any food that is safe to eat yet below our quality standards is donated to a food bank.

Our Warehouse

• Cooling units are Freon®-free, environmentally friendly. This includes 9 cooling units as well as our office HVAC system.
• NMPSF’s warehouse was designed with super resourceful air flow systems that circulate fresh air evenly. Equipped with computer controlled louvers in our building’s roof and walls, we can refresh the air in our facility several times an hour, bringing Mother Nature’s heating and cooling directly into our building.
• All refrigeration systems are fully integrated to maximize efficiency. For example, in our “dry goods” warehouse area, the hot-air furnaces, ceiling fans, roof and wall louvers adjust warehouse conditions according to outside weather patterns automatically.
• Warehouse and office lighting is managed by proximity sensors, reducing energy use when any area is vacant for more than 3 minutes.
• Surveillance equipment (Every square inch of the premises is under constant recorded- surveillance) on-site features night vision capabilities to “see” in total darkness.
• NMPSF utilizes a giant trash compacter which reduces the emptying intervals, reducing the number of weekly trips the waste removal trucks must make to manage waste.
• Warehouse layout and design of our facility included refurbishing tons of existing storage racks for re-use. The racking equipment at our former facility was donated to Maine businesses for re-use.
• We replaced all aging light fixtures with modern, eco-friendly, low-energy ballasts and bulbs.
• Even our “Exit” signs have long lasting LED’s.
• During the building renovation, we recycled approximately 20 tons of steel!
• 75% of our old office furniture was reused or recycled.
• 5 of 9 refrigeration units were replaced with new high efficiency models.

The Office

• Our entire communications network is Energy Star Certified equipment and is configured to reduce energy consumption. This consists of our telephones, fax machines, servers, workstation computers, monitors, printers, routers and switches. (Even the television in our employee break room!)
• NMPSF returns 100% of empty toner cartridges to the manufacturer for re-use. Our heavy-cycle printer contains lightweight, plastic toner “tubes” not bulky cartridges. (And yes, even the toner tubes are recycled!)
• NMPSF utilizes a fax-server, keeping most fax documents in an electronic state, reducing the need for printed materials.
• Office paper, corrugated cardboard, plastic bottles and aluminum cans are collected and sorted on-site for recycling.

Advertising

• Our price lists, newsletters, promotions and primary source of communication relies heavily on email and the internet, saving as much paper as possible.
• All printed advertising material is on recycled paper.

Cleaning Agents

• The warehouse/food storage areas of NMPSF floors are regularly cleaned using only eco-friendly, non-toxic, food-grade (HACCP certified) cleaners under very high pressure by our own full time staff.
  

Shipping

• NMPSF ships in strict accordance to municipal ordinances and for environmental concerns; some of which involve restricting the use of Styrofoam®, wooden crates and other farm supplied packing materials.
• We offer to remove excess packaging and to ship your orders on pallets, thus reducing the amount of corrugate cardboard and poly plastics.
• All customers are encouraged to return our own logo clad cardboard boxes and milk crates to the driver for immediate re-use/recycling.
• Plastic shipping bins are offered for customers who request them.

Vehicles

• 100% of NMPSF’s diesel powered delivery fleet is fueled on-site with bio-diesel when weather conditions permit.