Edward Lee's restaurant SHIA did the hard work on reducing plastic, so you don't have to
Restaurateur and chef Edward Lee is here to help.
Last year, Lee opened the nonprofit fine-dining concept SHIA in Washington, D.C., with support from OpenTable. The 35-seat Korean tasting-menu concept (with two turns per night) is a five-year project designed to be a think tank of sorts for the industry.
Lee’s goal is to tackle challenging operational issues—plastic reduction being the first—in a real restaurant environment, and then to share the results with the industry—for free—to help them make better decisions about their own businesses.
Plastic reduction isn’t the only issue Lee hopes to address.
At SHIA, Lee and his crew are also simultaneously working on efforts to reduce energy use, for example, as well as waste reduction. More is coming on those topics later. And Lee said he is open to suggestion from the industry about the types of problems that need solving.
Lee, of course, is known for the restaurants Nami and 610 Magnolia in Louisville, Kentucky, and he has served as culinary director for the Succotash Prime concept in D.C., which, like SHIA, is part of Knead Hospitality. Lee also founded The LEE (Let's Empower Employment) Initiative, an organization that works to promote equality, diversity and opportunities in the industry.
SHIA is a collaboration with the LEE Initiative and other partners, including OpenTable.
First up at the ambitious concept is the reduction of plastic, a material so prevalent in restaurant kitchens that becoming fully “zero plastic” might require a more strategic investment, according to a preliminary report posted by SHIA on Wednesday.
Lee said his goal is not to “stand on a pedestal and say, ‘Hey, you should go 100% plastic free, because we did.’ I think a lot of times when you tackle these environmental issues, there is a tendency to grandstand and say, ‘We’re doing this. Look at how awesome we are and you’re not,’” said Lee. “But that’s not productive.”
Instead, SHIA’s report offers details on their efforts to find alternatives for 31 common plastic items in restaurant kitchens, from squeeze bottles, gloves and containers, to permanent markers and candles.
The paper goes through the pros and cons of each alternative material, which Lee said is designed to serve as a “blueprint” or checklist that other operators can use to consider their own operational changes.
“We’re giving you this blueprint, so at least you have a head start,” he said. “You’re not starting from zero. You can see what we did. You can agree or disagree. Do what you want.”
Owner and executive chef Edward Lee (center) in the kitchen at SHIA. | Photo courtesy of Ashley Shadburne.
Other operators may find they can only reduce their plastic use by 20% or 50%, and that’s fine, he argued.
“If 1,000 restaurants decide to reduce their plastic by 20%, that’s a huge amount of actual plastic weight that’s not going to the landfills and into our oceans,” he said.
After making these changes for seven months and operating as a zero-plastic restaurant, SHIA estimates about 229 to 351 kilograms of plastic waste has been diverted from landfills, roughly the equivalent of 11,000 to 20,000 single-use plastic bottles.
This initial report offers estimates of cost, but a more detailed financial analysis is planned for later this year, after the one-year anniversary in November. And in year two, the research will delve further into the supply chain, and efforts to remove plastic on that end.
Lee believes that plastic reduction is the new “organic.”
He remembers being in a restaurant years ago the first time a farmer brought in a basket of organic produce. The chef at the time said, “Who would pay double for an organic carrot?”
Now, there are many diners willing to pay up to 40% more for organic ingredients, Lee said.
As we learn more about the health impacts of plastic in the environment, Lee believes consumers will look for restaurants making the effort to cut their use of plastic. The SHIA report is designed to help operators better cost out and communicate on their menus the impact of specific changes.
“Will consumers be willing to pay $4 more for salmon if they know it wasn’t processed, stored or used in plastic, and that you’re not contributing to plastic in our landfill? That is a bigger question, and I don’t have the answer to that,” Lee said. “But the first thing we need to do in order to answer that question is to pinpoint what that actual cost is.”
For example, Lee said one of the biggest challenges was storage containers. And that required new thinking about the way the kitchen preps for the week.
A look in the walk in of most restaurants will reveal dozens of quart containers, or deli containers, filled with sauces and vegetables and other ingredients, he said. At SHIA, they compared the use of standard quart containers with ceramic, stainless steel and glass alternatives, with estimated costs and pros and cons.
Plastic quart containers are inexpensive, lightweight and require low labor to wash for reuse a few times before disposal. But they create a lot of waste, particularly if used only once.
Ceramics, on the other hand, have a more significant initial investment, plus replacement costs for breakage. They have specific dishwashing procedures and are not ideal for high-volume prep. But they retain temperatures and don’t react to high pH foods. They’re also visually more attractive in an open kitchen.
Stainless steel is durable, non-reactive and compatible for commercial dishwashers. They are also visually appealing. But they can conduct heat and cold, you can’t see what’s in them, they retain moisture and can be expensive. And many have plastic lids.
Glass is expensive, less fragile than ceramic but more breakable than stainless. They are washable and durable if maintained, but they can chip and break. Their fragility and weight are significant drawbacks in a busy kitchen.
In the end, SHIA went with a mix of reusable containers. The crew also shifted to daily prep procedures, rather than prepping food for a week ahead that needed to be stored.
In later versions of the report, Lee hopes to articulate some of the psychological impacts of making the switch.
Using plastic in kitchens can result in somewhat careless behavior, like throwing a container across a room to the dishwasher, he said.
But using glass and ceramics, the team found they changed how they moved around the kitchen.
“You have to be more careful about how you handle it because, obviously, if you slip and fall, you drop it and it’s a much bigger cleanup,” he said.
The metal dishes are heavier, and people move a bit more slowly and deliberately, he added.
“I just think it makes us better cooks,” he said. “Things feel more permanent. They feel more careful, more curated. And I think customers feel that too.”
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