Operations

How Budderfly reduces energy costs, helps QSRs become greener

Photo: Adobe Stock

May 6, 2024

Restaurant owners learned how to cut expenses and become more eco-friendly from a recent webinar sponsored by Budderfly and hosted by Networld Media Group. The webinar explored how restaurant brands Ninety-Nine and O'Charley's achieved both goals through innovative energy management.

The webinar, titled "Driving Profits: The Impact of Energy Management Outsourcing at Ninety-Nine and O'Charley's" featured Craig Norris, energy efficiency program director for Budderfly and Lee Rathbun, director of restaurants facilities for Restaurant Growth Services, parent company to Ninety-Nine and O'Charley's.

Ninety-Nine and O'Charley's have 130 locations across 15 states utilizing Budderfly's energy management services to reduce costs and increase energy efficiency.

"Restaurants in general are a very energy-intense business, whether it's gas, electric (or) water," Rathbun said. "We use them all, and we use a lot of them all, especially with the number of restaurants we have. … We know that's not a good thing long term for the environment and for our world today. So as a company being more energy efficient (and) doing our part from a sustainability standpoint is very important to us. But the issue we ran into and the issue I'm sure other people run into is the 'how.' Everyone knows (energy efficiency) is important … but bringing that to reality is really not an easy task."

Hurdles Rathbun's brands ran into were what to do and how to pay for it.

"Budderfly was really somebody who was able to help us with both of those," he added, calling it a "win-win situation."

Budderfly was able to help Ninety-Nine and O'Charley's save 22% in energy consumption after installing an HVAC system, better lighting, metering and refrigeration controls.

Norris said U.S. commercial buildings waste 40% of the energy – enough wasted energy to power every QSR in the United States for 32 years.

He added that energy efficiency is hard to prioritize because the cost of goods continues to increase and hiring is more expense. There's also lack of capital to consider – lack of capital to cover energy upgrades due to higher priority requirements and opportunities. Maintenance and repairs are hard to manage, QSRs are simply too busy focusing on pressing business needs, and owners don't have the bandwidth to vet proper energy efficiency solutions.

Budderfly looks at making the greatest impact and making it easier for companies to go green and make it worth it for them.

"We realized that money, obviously, is always going to be the primary friction point," Norris said, "so we're removing that. Our solution is whatever we tell you needs to be done in your site … we're going to pay for it ourselves up front. You have no capital outlay when you work with Budderfly."

Norris added that the Budderfly solution is going to lower QSRs' overall energy consumption and the amount being charged for water. Budderfly helps with ongoing maintenance, and owners get a simple discounted energy bill.

Norris asked Rathbun how Budderfly how metering and monitoring has helped his brands, and Rathbun said especially with water, having a service paying attention to usage has found issues at several of his restaurants.

To watch the free webinar, click here.