Salad Chain Shares Sustainable Progress

With reusable bowl options, carefully sourced ingredients and equipment tweaks, Just Salad is realizing the impact of its day-to-day choices. Its new 26-page 2024 Impact Report offers a glimpse behind the scenes throughout fiscal year 2023.

Of note, on the equipment side, the report highlights a 2023 partnership with Budderfly, an energy-efficiency-as-a-service provider, that reduced energy consumption by over 12% at select units. Upgrades that helped achieve the reduction included refrigeration systems with enhanced control of compressors, evaporator coils and fans; refrigerant additives that extend the life of HVAC systems; and the use of night curtains to preserve temperatures in beverage coolers overnight. For new-construction stores, the report notes that the chain is opting for chairs made from 90% recycled wood-filled polypropylene.

Here are a few more of Just Salad’s accomplishments, by the numbers:
• 43,000: The cumulative weight, in pounds, of single-use packaging waste the chain avoided in 2023 through reusable bowl programs.
• 16: The number of stores offering a use-and-return reusable bowl program—a program the fast-casual first trialed in 2021. Altogether, the chain has 75 units across seven states.
• 50%: The approximate percentage of permanent menu items that are vegetarian. The menu also includes low-carbon footprint items like an organic certified quinoa boasting a 230% lower footprint than conventional quinoa. In 2020, the chain began displaying carbon footprint labels for each menu item.

Also, in April 2023, Just Salad became a Certified B Corporation—an achievement met by fewer than 50 businesses in the restaurant/foodservice sector. To view the 2024 impact report, click here.