I attended the recent Florida Restaurant & Lodging Expo in Orlando. There were about 450 suppliers there. The event has got to be one of the largest state-level hospitality trade shows in the country. Be sure to read my article about the event.
Before I continue about the trade show, allow me to backtrack more than five years to when Best Western rolled out its “I Care Clean” program. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it involved the use of UV wands and black lights in the cleaning of guestrooms and common areas. The UV wands were used to sterilize telephones, clocks, light switches, etc. The black lights were used to inspect for biological matter, food particles, and more. The program added some minutes to the time needed to clean a room. To be effective over a surface, the UV wand had to be held in place for five to seven seconds within five to seven inches of an item. I just could not imagine a housekeeper going over an entire room like this.
Now, back to the trade show. There, a company called Violet Defense Technology introduced its Surface & Air Germ Elimination (S.A.G.E.) product line that also incorporates the germ-killing power of UV and violet blue light. In a hotel guestroom, for example, one would simply leave a mobile unit in a room to provide 360 degrees of coverage, or direct the light to one-half of the room if one wanted both high and low exposure (underneath counters and elevated surfaces). A housekeeper could place it in a room prior to doing other cleaning. It is comparable to using a portable ozone system in a room but without the potentially hazardous effects. It would require some moving in a guestroom but is certainly easier than using a portable wand.
Motion Sensor Technology Incorporated
According to Violet Defense Technology, their systems incorporate motion sensor technology and turn off when a person is present. The UV system effectively kills up to 99.9 percent of the most common germs, including MRSA, E. coli, Salmonella and Norovirus, from as far as three meters away. By combining UV-C, UV-B, UV-A and violet blue light, S.A.G.E. UV optimizes the amount of the germ-killing energy delivered through the air and onto any contact surface. This causes inactivation of microbes and inhibits reproduction, effectively preventing the spread of harmful bacteria and viruses.
Violet Defense Technology offers whole room ceiling units and a system that replaces an existing bathroom fan cover to bring a clinical-level of clean to bathroom spaces. The unit automatically transitions from controlling the bath fan, while the bathroom is occupied, to sanitizing bathroom surfaces once the bathroom is unoccupied.
It will be interesting to see if a brand or Violet Defense Technology itself comes up with a way to market a guestroom as being UV sanitized.
On-site Vegetable & Herb Growing
In recent years I have seen an increasing number of companies offering portable on-site growing systems for vegetables and herbs. Eden Grow Rooms and Carter-Hoffmann are two companies that come to mind. At the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Expo, Sustainable Gardens 2gether launched its unique new Chefs Choice and Chefs Garden microgreen growing systems for restaurants. The Chefs Choice system allows chefs to grow fresh high-quality microgreens in a specialized environmentally controlled cooler right in their own kitchens. The new Herb Tower Garden allows chefs to grow specialty culinary herbs right in the restaurant. Sustainable Gardens 2gether’s Guy Sanders told me the LED lighting and soil systems were specially designed to maximize plant growth.
Sustainability Seminar Finalized for HX: The Hotel Experience
The sustainability seminar, “2020 Vision—Lodging’s Leaders Set the Sustainability Bar Higher,” has been finalized for HX: The Hotel Experience. The event will take place on Monday, November 13 from 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on the Hotel stage at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. Don’t miss this seminar including Denise Naguib, Vice President, Sustainability & Supplier Diversity, Marriott International, Inc., Gardner Jackson, Assistant Vice President, the Nalco Water division of Ecolab USA Inc., and Lindsay Wilkinson, part of InterContinental Hotels Group’s Corporate Responsibility team focused on Environmental Sustainability. I will be moderating the session. Attendee registration for HX: The Hotel Experience, November 12 to 13, 2017, is now open at the newly redesigned website, www.thehotelexperience.com.
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