By Japji Singh
As a restaurateur, there is a particular kind of pride that comes with making an eco-friendly choice, like switching to compostable cups: you find a supplier, you update your Instagram bio, maybe you mention it on a proposal. Done. Sustainable. Moving on.
Except it is not done. Not even close. Most caterers are not being dishonest; they are being lazy with their thinking. The switch to eco-friendly packaging has become a checkbox when it should be a complete rethinking of how food is prepared, transported, and consumed at scale. The two are not the same thing, but they are being used interchangeable by many in the foodservice industry.
Managing appearances
Let’s start with a basic example: Toronto’s Green Bin program does not accept compostable plastics or plastic lined paper products. Items that behave like plastic get pulled out during processing and sent to the landfill regardless of what the label says. So, a caterer who switches to a certified compostable container and serves food at an event with no Green Bin sorting, no staff guidance, and no disposal signage, has essentially just bought a more expensive container that ends up in exactly the same place as the one it replaced. The optics changed, but the outcome did not.
That is the root problem – GTA caterers are managing appearances when they should be managing outcomes.
Considering operations
The second mistake is thinking packaging is mainly a sourcing decision. It is not; it is an operations decision. The real failures happen long before anyone opens a supplier catalogue: wrong sizing means food shifts and spills, weak materials collapse under heat or moisture and require a second layer of packaging to compensate, poor thermal performance means food arrives cold, and caterers add more mass to the order to compensate. Every one of those choices multiplies waste, and none of it is solved by changing the material the container is made from.
The container should be chosen last, after the menu, the transport time, the stacking method, and the service format are all understood. Most caterers do it first because it is easier to show clients a product photo than to explain the operational thinking behind a service design.
Greenwashing
The third failure is about language. There is a kind of performance that is integral to proposals and conversations, where words like ‘compostable,’ ‘biodegradable,’ and ‘sustainable’ get stacked together as if they all mean the same thing, but that’s not accurate. Standards bodies require compostable products to pass laboratory testing for industrial composting conditions before that term can be applied. Claiming compostable without knowing the certification, the composting pathway, or the end facility is not sustainable. It is greenwashing, even if the intention was never dishonest.
Corporate clients and event buyers are getting sharper with this. Beyond packaging materials, buyers now want to know where food originates, how far it travelled, what happens to organic waste after an event, and whether reusable service ware is available for staffed functions. A caterer who can talk compellingly about a container but has no answer on food sourcing or waste diversion is not leading the sustainability conversation.
Toronto’s regulatory direction reinforces this point clearly. The City’s Single Use and Takeaway Items Bylaw, in effect since March 2024, requires businesses to offer single use utensils, straws, and napkins only when a customer asks for them. This policy is not telling operators to use better disposables, it is saying use fewer disposables. Any caterer serious about being relevant in the next five years needs to look at the big picture.
The hard truth is that real sustainability in catering is unglamorous. It is about training kitchen staff to sort waste correctly, designing menus that travel well without excess packaging, standardizing containers to a handful of reliable formats rather than using options that seem ethical from a supplier PDF. It is about being honest with a client when reusable platters make more sense than compostable ones, even when that is a harder conversation to have.
The GTA catering market is large, competitive, and increasingly paying attention. Clients, venues, and corporate procurement teams are starting to distinguish between a caterer that has sustainability language and a caterer that has sustainability practice. If you are the former right now, the gap is closeable. But the first step is admitting that the compostable cup was never the finish line; it was always just the start of the conversation.
Japji is the founder of Ilavir, a Toronto based wholesale supplier of certified compostable tableware for restaurants, caterers, and event operators. Ilavir focuses on practical, commercially viable alternatives that help independent operators transition away from conventional single use plastics.
