Sustainability in 2025: It’s Not About Trendlines. It’s About the Horizon.

Trends are ideas, passions and fashions that come and go. By definition, they live in the short-term, capturing public consciousness, gaining traction, and then, just as quickly, are replaced by new diversions. Sustainability, however, doesn’t fit that pattern. I’ve often been asked to weigh in on sustainability trends and, while I appreciate the interest behind the question, sustainability does not follow trends.

While there’s little doubt the topic of sustainability rises and falls on the annual list of priorities for both consumers and CEOs, it’s actually more of a scorecard that measures how well we are balancing the human desire to consume and expend resources with the ability of the planet to provide and replenish. If we tip the scales too far, the correction will be delivered at the whim of nature, in ways we can only partially anticipate, but certainly don’t want to endure.

The hard push for sustainable practices in foodservice has been largely shaped by the forces of legislation, corporate policy, consumer demand and reality. Governments worldwide are beginning to demand accountability, implementing policies that require businesses to reduce waste, limit carbon emissions, and rethink their supply chains.

At the same time, the natural world is issuing its own mandates—rising temperatures, volatile weather patterns, and increasingly unpredictable supply chains—leaving businesses in the food ecosystem with little option but to adapt. Businesses that rely on a steady and affordable supply of food are among the first to feel the effects, and the largest of these, along with most restaurants, are already into the hard work of transforming their businesses to ensure resilience, mitigate risks and future-proof their operations against climate volatility, resource scarcity and shifting regulatory landscapes.

Despite some reports of declining investment in ESG and sustainability, for our industry the reality is far more nuanced. In foodservice, the focus isn’t shifting—because it can’t. We have no choice but to find ways to build resilience into the food system supply chain and make better, more sustainable decisions to ensure the long-term viability of our food system and our businesses.

If I had to summarize the three big themes underlying the sustainability conversation for the food and foodservice industry, they would be local sourcing and supply chain resilience, waste reduction and circular economy development, and inter-industry collaboration.

Local Sourcing & Supply Chain Resilience

For a long time, “local food” was perceived as a type of cuisine and associated with culinary tourism and farm-to-table dining, evoking images of rustic bistros boasting heirloom vegetables and grass-fed beef. But today, local isn’t just about aesthetic appeal or artisanal branding—it’s about survival. As global supply chains, once celebrated for their efficiency, have become increasingly fragile, all foodservice operators have had to rethink their dependencies and shift their sourcing strategies. The benefits of sourcing locally are not only about customer experience, they are increasingly about reliability. When global shortages cause delays, restaurants that have cultivated relationships with regional suppliers find themselves in a far stronger position. And for consumers, while cost and convenience still drive the majority of purchasing decisions, there’s a growing awareness that locally sourced food is often fresher, more traceable, and more available.

By focusing on ingredients grown and raised nearby—or even producing their own—restaurants are reducing transportation emissions, supporting local economies, and offering diners the richness of regional flavours. This approach not only strengthens relationships with farmers, fishers, and artisanal producers but also fosters innovation in menu design, showcasing hyper-seasonal dishes that tell a uniquely Canadian story.

In today’s competitive market, local sourcing has evolved beyond being a nod to sustainability—it’s now a strategy for resilience, culinary tourism, and distinctive storytelling.

Opportunities:

Hyperlocal & Seasonal Menus: Restaurants growing their own ingredients through rooftop gardens, greenhouses, or urban farms.

Farm-to-Table Experiences: Partnerships with local farms to host on-site dining events or culinary tours and reintroducing traditional preservation methods, such as canning, fermentation and pickling, to feature local ingredients on the menu year-round.

Consumer Education: Hosting workshops or dinner events to teach diners about local food systems and sustainability practices.

Local Branding & Carbon Labelling on Menus: Restaurants showcasing their commitment to Canadian ingredients through marketing and storytelling, incorporating supplier profiles and even identifying the carbon footprint of menu items.

Waste Reduction & Circularity

If there is one area where foodservice sustainability is making the most tangible progress, it’s in food waste reduction.

Yet, despite widespread acknowledgement of the issue, Second Harvest, Canada’s largest food rescue organization reports that 46.5 per cent of all food is wasted annually, yet 41.7 per cent of this food is edible and capable of being redirected to support Canadians, amounting to an estimated $58 billion in avoidable food waste each year.¹ Restaurants continue to make great strides in addressing waste by implementing ever more stringent ingredient and margin-conscious inventory management processes, and new technology and food redistribution efforts are accelerating further solutions.

Food rescue organizations like Second Harvest and food redistribution platforms like Too Good To Go are becoming an integral part of many restaurant operations, seamlessly incorporating food redirection into daily workflows. Meanwhile, larger institutions—hotels, schools and conference centres—are investing in biodigesters and collaborating with municipalities to enhance composting programs, creating a more sustainable approach to food waste management.

Efforts to curb food waste are evolving, but they’re just one piece of a much larger sustainability puzzle. Beyond food itself, the industry is also reckoning with another pressing issue—packaging waste. The takeout boom of the past decade has revealed an inconvenient truth: the convenience economy generates an overwhelming amount of disposable packaging. But there’s a palpable shift on the horizon—a growing commitment to a more circular takeout economy, where reusables are  finding a successful route into the mainstream.

Companies like Friendlier, Suppli, and Reusables are leading the charge, designing systems where customers borrow and return takeout containers rather than tossing them in the trash. These models have gained initial traction in dense urban centres and have shown success and potential to scale in smaller communities. As reusable packaging systems scale, they will fundamentally change the landscape and culture of food delivery and takeout.  The real challenge to adoption isn’t customer willingness—it’s making sustainability the default. The businesses leading the charge aren’t waiting for consumers to opt in; they’re designing solutions that are seamless, cost-competitive, and baked into the experience. When the responsible choice is the easiest and most affordable one, real change happens.

Beyond regulatory compliance, Canadian restaurants are taking sustainability a step further, finding ways to embrace waste reduction principles and implement circular economy models across the value chain, prioritizing solutions that serve the health of the planet and their bottom line.

Opportunities:

Whole-Ingredient Cooking: Elevating root-to-stem and whole-animal cuisine, where every part of an ingredient is utilised, creating dishes that are both inventive and waste-conscious.

Food Redistribution Programs: Collaborating with organizations like Second Harvest or community food banks to redirect good, surplus food to those in need, addressing both waste and food insecurity or Too Good To Go, using their app to offer surplus food at a discount to local customers.

Upcycled Food: Incorporating products like spent grains, coffee grounds, and surplus produce that are repurposed into high-quality ingredients and even branded merchandise.          

Reusable Packaging: Partnering with reusable container systems, such as Reusables and ShareWares (Vancouver, BC), Suppli (Toronto) and Friendlier (Ontario), to tackle the growing demand for sustainable, circular takeout container solutions.

Sustainable, Minimalist & Edible Packaging: Adopting materials such as plant-based plastics, compostable fibre containers, and biodegradable utensils that break down naturally without harming the environment or finding ways to eliminate excess takeout packaging including complimentary items like condiment packets, pizza savers and cutlery cuts down waste, and saves a little money. Experimenting with edible packaging options like seaweed wraps and edible bowls can also add a creative element to the dining experience.

Operational Innovation: Conducting waste audits to refine purchasing, storage, and preparation processes, improving efficiency and cutting costs.

Inter-Industry Collaboration

Perhaps the most significant shift in 2025 won’t be in individual restaurant practices,
but in collective action. It’s not enough for one restaurant to implement best practices; the entire ecosystem needs to evolve toward systemic change. Major brands like McDonald’s are leveraging their purchasing power to encourage suppliers to adopt sustainable innovations, creating ripple effects that influence entire supply chains. Small and mid-sized businesses, meanwhile, are forming coalitions to share best practices, negotiate better sustainability-focused contracts, and advocate for a whole-industry approach.

The food system is not a passive entity—it is an interconnected ecosystem of farmers, distributors, processors, retailers, restaurants, and consumers, all of whom play an integral role in shaping sustainability outcomes. As stewards of food production and distribution, industry players bear the responsibility of ensuring that food is grown, sourced, prepared, and served in a way that minimizes harm to the environment while supporting human and economic well-being.

Opportunities:

Regenerative Agriculture Partnerships: Collaborating with farms that use
carbon-sequestering practices to further reduce environmental impact.

Local Food Collaborations: Restaurants and local agricultural producers teaming up for joint promotions, pop-ups, integrated food experiences, or local product launches.

Closed-Loop Supply Chains & Recycling: Collaborating with recycling companies to ensure packaging waste is repurposed into new products or that organic waste becomes input for other industries, like animal feed or biofuels. Creating a local composting alliance to transform food scraps into nutrient-rich soil, closing the loop between farm and table.

Community Engagement & Education: Collaborating with food system partners to
offer workshops and promote minimal-waste menus and initiatives, food redistribution successes, sustainable packaging choices, and the environmental impact of local food partners’ actions to inspire diners to adopt waste-reducing practices at home.

Supplier Collaboration: Working with suppliers to source eco-friendly packaging materials and minimize excess packaging in deliveries.

For some industries, participation in sustainability initiatives may still feel like a choice, but for foodservice, it’s an imperative. The food sector is inherently tied to the natural world. Agricultural production is dependent on soil health, water availability, and climate stability—factors that are increasingly at risk.

The way food is sourced, transported, and consumed has a direct impact on climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion. As such, sustainability is not a separate initiative; it is embedded in the very nature of food production and service. Foodservice must remain agile and adaptable. Forward-thinking businesses understand that reducing waste, lowering emissions, and supporting ethical sourcing are not just about compliance but about future-proofing their operations against supply chain disruptions, extreme weather events, and shifting consumer expectations.

As 2025 unfolds, legislative changes loom on the horizon. Political shifts in both Canada and the U.S. could bring new regulations—or rollbacks—that impact the foodservice industry’s sustainability trajectory. Regardless of what the future holds, one truth remains: foodservice will continue to make incremental progress and plan for the future, because sustainability is part of our everyday business.