NAPA VALLEY, CALIF.—Silverado Resort’s frenetic executive chef Peter Pahk believes some things must be done slowly. Pahk has been instrumental in driving the Napa Valley resort’s numerous food-related environmental initiatives, and he has realized that to be a true leader you cannot expect overnight results. One of his many initiatives is to embrace organizations such as Slow Foods Napa and Slow Foods USA, organizations committed to identifying, preserving and promoting small agricultural producers and to educate the public about distinctive regional food traditions. The resort’s membership in Slow Foods aptly illustrates the commitment of Pahk and other resort leaders in...

TROY, OHIO—Hobart announced the redesign of its website. The new site integrates the Hobart, Traulsen refrigeration and Baxter Bakery brands into one seamless front-end user experience from site to site. The interface uses a tab mechanism that highlights all three brands in a cohesive style so Hobart can showcase its full line of commercial food equipment and unique nationwide network of Hobart Service. “The new Hobart site brings Hobart, Traulsen and Baxter together in one online environment,” said Tom Szafranski, president of ITW Food Equipment Group-Commercial. “The updated site provides a seamless connection between the three brands while giving each...

ORLANDO, FLA.—AAA has updated its Restaurant Approval Requirements & Diamond Rating Guidelines, the blueprint for evaluating and rating more than 27,000 restaurants throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. The guidelines are revised as needed to reflect changing industry trends and member expectations, with the last update occurring in 2003. As an example of change that impacts the guidelines, AAA’s director of tourism information development Michael Petrone cites increased consumer awareness of food content. “Many of today’s restaurant customers seek healthier options and are more knowledgeable than ever before about the food they eat,” Petrone said. “As a...

SHEFFIELD, MASS.—Cypress Bath, Bed & Spa, a leading designer and manufacturer of luxury bathrobes, towels, slippers, and sheets for the global hospitality and spa industries, announced that Gaia Napa Valley Hotel & Spa has chosen their environmentally-friendly Green Earth towel for property-wide use. A recently completed six-month pilot program by Gaia demonstrated credible and successful results to prove Cypress’ claim that the Green Earth towel provided energy savings, detergent use reductions and lowered water usage. “Loosely translated as Greek for ‘Mother Earth,’ Gaia is truly a special property, and a property founded on a vision of sustainability,” said Gene Faul,...

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, CALIF.—As of July 20, the owners of the Embassy Suites Lake Tahoe Hotel & Ski Resort had spent $250,000 less than they had expected to spend on energy this year. According to David Hansen, director of engineering at the 400-suite property, the hotel could come close to a total of $500,000 in energy savings by the end of 2009. When comparing the first six months of this year against the first six months of last year, electricity consumption dropped by 575,000 kilowatt hours ($98,902 savings) and natural gas consumption by 9,314 dekatherms ($67,709 savings). The hotel...

CLEVELAND, OHIO—Hasek Communications, the Cleveland, Ohio-based publisher of Green Lodging News, has added a ClearWater Tech, LLC case study to the Green Lodging News website. The case study details the positive impact of the installation of an ozone laundry system at the Apple Farm Inn and Suites in San Luis Obispo, Calif. The case study documents the savings the ozone system generated in numerous charts and graphs. The payback time on the system was just 7.7 months, with more than $22,000 in annual labor savings. Overall, the ozone laundry system has saved the Apple Farm Inn nearly 40...

BERKELEY, CALIF.—VASKA, a Berkeley, Calif.-based producer of green, botanically-based laundry care products for the commercial, institutional and consumer markets, announced that Royal Laundry of South San Francisco, the largest privately owned commercial laundry on the West Coast, is washing one million pounds of laundry a week using Vaska’s green laundry solutions in its three state-of-the-art tunnel systems. Royal Laundry washes laundry for more than 100 Northern California hotels. Royal Laundry has been a major commercial laundry service provider in the Bay Area for 47 years. When Royal began to encounter challenges with its previous chemical supplier, Don Luckenbach , Royal’s...

RIPON, WIS.—Who says efficiency isn’t fun? Probably somebody who’s never turned their old dryer into a soda cooler. UniMac, a leader in manufacturing energy- and water-efficient commercial laundry equipment, believes thinking “green” can be loads of fun and has launched its “Tumbler Re-use Project” to prove it. Located at www.unimac.com/promotions/tumbler/, the site takes an amusing turn in offering laundry managers and general managers of hotels and other properties ways to “re-purpose” their old, inefficient drying tumblers. From a soda cooler to a backyard fire pit, the Tumbler Re-Use Project will explore a variety of creative ideas to keep that old...

BOYLSTON, MASS.—Restaurants can now run their operations on waste vegetable oil, thanks to the development of Vegawatt from Owl Power Company. This new product enables restaurants to reduce their need for electricity and natural gas supplied from utility companies by using their waste vegetable oil to create electricity and hot water. Owl Power is a developer of clean energy systems and the Massachusetts-based company has been hard at work for the last four years creating, testing, and now unveiling the Vegawatt, a cogeneration system that uses waste vegetable oil as fuel to generate on-site electricity and hot water. “It’s with great...

HIGHLAND PARK, ILL.—Solo Cup Company announced the introduction of Bare by Solo compostable plates made with sugarcane. The ivory-colored plates feature an on-trend, square design that offers a stylish alternative to traditional round single-use dinnerware. The new plates also offer consumers an environmentally preferable way to serve meals every day or on special occasions using renewable materials that can also reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills. “Being ‘greener’ doesn’t have to equal boring or difficult,” said Kim Healy, vice president of consumer marketing at Solo. “Bare by Solo products offer fresh designs that reflect our consumers’ environmentally...