Pizza Today - June 2017 - 40

long history in its community into SOL Pie
Pizza in 2013. In order to fulfill their sustainable promise, Alan says, they became nearly a
scratch kitchen, seasoning Italian sausage and
making dressing and sauces. Doing so has
not only helped control quality, but has also
helped control costs.
Making the switch to a sustainable menu
required an educational process for the Franks,
their employees and their customers. Alan
applied a common-sense approach to research-

ing food labels. "If there are ingredients in
something that you can't pronounce, chances
are it's not food," he says. "It's chemicals added
to preserve food." SOL Pie also has a policy to
let its customers view any product label.
Sustainable food has provided
Napizza and SOL Pie a point of differentiation in their competitive
markets. Napizza and SOL Pie were early

adopters in their areas. Colmignoli and Frank

contend it's not an easy change. Each
offers advice. "You have to believe it and
love it," Colmignoli says, "because it is a
hassle. If you don't believe, you are going
to give up. And don't hire a cook who
doesn't believe."
Frank agrees and adds: "Starting with
produce is a cheaper place to start than
meat," Alan says. "I think the familiarity
with organic produce is there for a lot
more people."
The Green Restaurant Association
works with restaurants to help them
become environmentally sustainable.
"One of the seven environmental categories we work with is sustainable food,"
Founder and CEO Michael Oshman
says. "The other ones are energy, water,
waste, disposable, chemical and building."
Through its certification, restaurants are
awarded "GreenPoints" based on criteria
such as certified organic or certified naturally gown, certified humanely raised and
handled, sourced within 400-mile radius
and vegan/vegetarian entrée offerings.
"My biggest advice is to do it in a
calculated and comprehensive way,"
Oshman says. "Don't just go and read this
wonderful article and try this, this or this.
That's not calculated. That's not strategic
if you don't have a plan about how you
are going to communicate it, how you are
going to market it. It's so important to do
it in a smart way."
Oshman says there are two approaches
a pizzeria could choose to take. "We can
start off slowly by taking a staple item
that has price parity with a non-organic
item, because there are some foods that
are sometimes priced the same as their
pesticide counterpart.
"Another approach that restaurants
can do...Keep your menu as it is and add
a new menu item. Now it's a new menu
item and on that one, all of the ingredients are organic. And yes that one is more
expensive." n
DENISE GREER is

Today.

associate editor of Pizza

More on PizzaToday.com
More on the logistics of a green menu
and a glossary of common terms
@ www.pizzatoday.com/news/pizzaheadlines/logistics-green-menu/
4 0 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / J U N E 2 0 1 7

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Pizza Today - June 2017

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