Sterno Products, a portable food warming company, has launched new sustainability initiatives to reduce its overall carbon footprint associated with keeping food hot.

20May - SP

Image: Sterno has announced its sustainability commitment at the National Restaurant Association Show. Photo: Courtesy of Mogens Petersen from Pixabay.

Sterno announced its sustainability commitment at the National Restaurant Association Show held in Chicago, US.

As part of its sustainability efforts, Sterno will introduce redesigned chafing fuel cans that use less steel, cardboard and non-renewable resources.

The portable food warming company has made an impact on its material sourcing and selection by re-engineering and enhancing its chafing fuels to create a more efficient packaging design.

The company has optimised the size of its chafing fuel cans to use 10% less steel, and has also reduced the consumption of non-renewable resources, by a full 10%, by optimising the size of the wick and reformulating the fuel blend.

Sterno has started making all of its chafing fuel cans and lids from highly recycled steel, making it easier for waste management facilities to easily separate steel with magnets if the product is not recycled properly.

The new gel cans also allowed for packaging to be redesigned, requiring 7% less cardboard, saving nearly 350 trees annually.

Sterno said that its packaging is made from sustainable forestry initiative materials, a certification standard based on sustainable forest management principles.

The company has reduced the packaging size, where smaller packaging impacts the number of trucks delivering raw materials to the factory, where fewer trucks contributes fewer emissions.

Sterno Products president Craig Carnes said: “Over the past decade we’ve achieved a number of firsts as a company on the environmental front that we’re proud of – from first to having USDA Biopreferred Ethanol to UL Validated for Clean Emissions. But we don’t want to stop there.

“As a leader in the industry, we are investing in additional steps to reduce our carbon footprint while maintaining the quality and performance of Sterno chafing fuels.”

Based in Corona, California, Sterno Products is a producer and marketer of portable food warming fuels and creative table lighting solutions for the hospitality and consumer industries.