The Life Cycle of a Good Bowl
Our Good Bowls tagline is “Do Good While Eating Well.” The doing part includes many different things. We at Equiti Foods are dedicated to a business approach that is centered around environmental stewardship. Not only do we source locally, but we want to ensure that each step of our production process is considered for its effect on the environment. As part of our participation in a USDA Local Food Promotion Grant, we purchase Grade B produce whenever possible, great vegetables that are often discarded for purely cosmetic reasons. When we choose our packaging, we ensure that it is recyclable.
As part of this mission, Equiti Foods partnered with a group of students from the UNC Institute for the Environment. For their capstone project, they conducted a Life Cycle Analysis: an environmental impact study that examines each stage of a product’s creation, all the way from the sourcing of raw materials to waste disposal. We were excited to work with them and see if we were successfully mediating our environmental impact.
For their study, the students focused on our famous Chicken Burrito Bowl, and they began by calculating the inputs and outputs of each part of its production process. To do this, they examined our local ingredient sourcing, bowl preparation at the Weaver Street Market Food House, packaging, transportation, storage, and waste disposal process. Then, they used EcoInvent, a life cycle inventory database, to analyze the environmental impact of each stage.
They found that our use of Grade B vegetables in our Chicken Burrito Bowl was more environmentally friendly than using Grade A vegetables. Grade B vegetable use was associated with less land use and greater soil health. There was also a decrease in eutrophication, the creation of oxygen-poor zones caused by excess nutrients in the water. Our waste management, when compared to other models, was associated with landfill diversion and a decrease in carbon emissions. This is because our use of recyclable materials, as well as Grade B vegetables, decreases what is put into the landfill.
We’re proud of our Chicken Burrito Bowl, and we hope you give it a try. You can also check out our vegetarian bowls, which have even less environmental impact because they don’t contain meat. Going forward, we hope to continue to decrease our environmental footprint, and part of that starts with you! When you purchase our bowls, remember to recycle the packaging!