TORONTO—Canadian Linen and Uniform Service, a leading supplier of linen and uniform rental services in North America, announced the launch of a pilot program that will test three new types of alternative fuel vehicles in an effort to positively impact the environment and assess the impact on the company’s overall operations. Compressed natural gas (CNG), propane and plug-in electric vehicles will be tested this fall and throughout the upcoming year.“We have one of the largest fleets in the industry, so we have the capacity to put some resources towards reducing emissions while exploring the impact on fuel costs,” said...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The National Restaurant Assn. announced the release of its first-ever sustainability report, which looks at environmentally stable trends and initiatives within the restaurant industry, such as food waste reduction, composting, recycling and cost-efficient energy solutions.“Sustainability and waste reduction are increasingly important issues across the restaurant and foodservice industry,” said Scott DeFife, Executive Vice President, Policy and Government Affairs, National Restaurant Association. “We have seen incorporation of eco-friendly business practices from large chains to independent operators, as well as manufacturers and other supply chain partners. The National Restaurant Association is working to ensure operators have access to the education,...

MANCHESTER, N.H.—Xeros, the innovator of an ultra low water cleaning system, announced that it has officially opened its North American headquarters in Manchester, N.H. The company also named three industry veterans to lead its North American sales and operations and to support its current customers. The appointees include Jonathan Benjamin as President North America; David Kaupp, Vice President of Marketing; and Jim Basler as Director of Operations.Through the use of polymer bead technology, the patented Xeros System for commercial laundry uses 70 percent less water, up to 50 percent less energy, and approximately 50 percent less detergent, to deliver...

NEW YORK—Hilton Hotels & Resorts, the flagship brand of Hilton Worldwide, announced the launch of Herb N’ Kitchen, its new dining concept that infuses fresh, local gourmet food into an upscale restaurant and convenient culinary market. Now open inside New York Hilton Midtown, the largest hotel in Manhattan, the first Herb N’ Kitchen offers locals and travelers healthy fare for breakfast, lunch and dinner; and the choice of restaurant dining at their leisure, meals packaged to take away or in-room delivery for hotel guests.With a shift in the way today’s travelers dine, the quick service segment is moving to...

PHOENIX—Food has always had a powerful way of bringing families together, and now families visiting Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in Phoenix can enjoy a memorable private dining experience with the resort’s executive chef at his urban garden.The urban garden at Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort has been a labor of love for the resort’s Executive Chef Kenneth Arneson for more than two years. Today, the garden is ripe with a diverse array of vegetables like carrots, bell peppers, mung beans and Swiss chard and a robust mix of herbs from dill to lavender. With a personal passion for...

INWOOD, N.Y.—Laundrylux has launched its new website. The site has been redesigned with a fresh, clean look and user-friendly navigation. The site includes information on the new Electrolux Professional Line 5000 and Wascomat Generation 7 equipment lineup. It also includes details on PLUS—Professional Laundry Utility Service by Laundrylux. With PLUS, hotels, nursing homes and other On Premise Laundry customers can receive new Electrolux professional laundry equipment delivered and installed for free with zero capital investment and no long-term lease or contract. PLUS is a revolution in OPL which operates like Zipcar and other “only pay for what you use”...

ATLANTA—InterContinental Hotels & Resorts announced that it is the first hotel chain to have all of its IHG corporate-managed restaurants in the United States and Canada become Certified Green Restaurants.In September 2011, the InterContinental Boston hotel’s Miel Brasserie Provençale was the first of the hotel chain’s restaurants to receive the certification. Based on the hotel’s positive feedback about the certification process, the InterContinental brand made the decision to require all of its internally managed restaurants to meet the rigorous environmental certification standards of the Green Restaurant Association (GRA), and last week the hotel chain achieved this goal.InterContinental Hotels &...

SEATTLE—Reducing the amount of food waste that restaurateurs, retailers and manufacturers produce was the main topic of conversation at an August meeting of the Food Waste Reduction Alliance (FWRA) in Seattle.The meeting was conducted by the National Restaurant Assn., the Grocery Manufacturers Assn. and the Food Marketing Institute, the three charter members of the FWRA. The meeting, one of three during the year, focused on ways to reduce the amount of food waste that goes to landfills and increase the amount of food that is donated to food banks and other like-minded charitable organizations, said Laura Abshire, the NRA’s...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The National Restaurant Assn. (NRA) announced the members of the Conserve Sustainability Advisory Council as part of its plan to help restaurateurs better understand environmental awareness and become more resource-efficient through its Conserve program.  The advisory council is composed of 14 members of the foodservice and allied industry, all of whom are sustainability experts in their own right. As council members, they will be tasked with sharing their education, lessons learned and best practices applied at their own businesses. “We are pleased to announce this group of some of the most influential sustainability leaders in the foodservice industry today,”...

BOSTON—With the public comment period closing on August 23, only a few steps remain for the approval of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s (MassDEP) proposed commercial food waste ban set to take effect by July 1, 2014. According to Greg Cooper, division director of Business Compliance for MassDEP’s Bureau of Waste Prevention, an initial review of the public comments showed little opposition to the ban. “My hope is that we can move the package fairly quickly and stay on track with our intended schedule of implementation,” Cooper says. The commercial food waste ban initially will impact hotels in...