Have you noticed that something familiar is missing at our restaurants?

After you finish your favorite Yumm! Bowl®, a sauce-smeared plate, empty cup, crumpled napkins, and maybe a cookie crumb or two get brushed from the table. While heading to the trash can, you suddenly realize…there isn’t one! In its place, you discover a bus tub that collects all of the used dishes, utensils, and food waste. So, what happens next?

We care about reducing waste and that means reusing, recycling, and composting as much as possible. Having a bus tub system, rather than traditional trash cans, allows us to easily collect and sort discarded items. It also reduces our need for plastic trash bags.

Offering our dine-in guests reusable bowls, utensils, and cups allows us to keep disposable products out of the landfill. We’re also happy to collect any recyclables that are generated during your meal, like glass bottles and newspapers. Because we love our food, it’s important to us that even our food scraps can be returned to the planet’s natural cycle. Our restaurants participate in city composting programs wherever possible.

Doing our part to respect these resources brings us joy.

Café Yumm! has taken these steps to reduce waste:

• Instead of trash cans in the dining area, bus tubs are provided to guests. Team Members carefully sort each item for washing, recycling, and composting (where available) to ensure minimal waste goes to the landfill.

• Instead of the typical disposable options used by restaurants with similar operations, Cafe Yumm! provides reusable bowls, utensils, and cups for dine-in guests to reduce packaging waste.

• To avoid unnecessary food waste, we offer three sizes of Yumm! Bowls and welcome custom orders. That way, you can enjoy the perfect amount and select only the ingredients you love.

• Packaging for our catering items includes compostable bowls and biodegradable serving scoops and tongs, which are also reusable and dishwasher safe.

• We worked with researchers to develop a plant-based polymer for use in certified compostable flatware for all of our restaurants. The flatware is manufactured in Oregon.

• Many of our paper products (like menus, takeout boxes, and office paper) are made from 100% post-consumer waste recycled materials.

• We participate in food compost programs and helped the City of Portland adopt their first composting program for restaurants.

Thanks to the wonderful support of our restaurant guests over the years, we have been able to improve our sustainability efforts. We will continue to innovate and evolve our waste reduction processes to lessen the impact on our communities and on our planet. We appreciate you!