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Challenges facing the food industry
The food service industry is grappling with numerous challenges: rising product and energy costs, uneven competition, and decisions made at the expense of quality and sustainability. Many businesses are asking whether it’s time to close. Building resilience to these issues is crucial, especially for restaurants, local producers, and others in the sector. Developing effective survival strategies is essential.
At Rebread and our former bakery Handelek, we have been actively addressing these challenges by implementing projects that not only reduce costs but also promote sustainability and foster partnerships with like-minded organisations.
Circular hubs can be the solution
Thorough business analysis is key to finding cost-saving opportunities. Identifying where money leaks, reducing waste, and improving resource use can make a significant difference. Strengthening collaboration across the supply chain and integrating circularity practices – such as the "farm-to-fork" approach – can increase business resilience.
For example, delivery costs rise with transport distances. Partnering with nearby producers or neighboring businesses to share deliveries can cut expenses. Additionally, up to 91.4% of global raw materials follow a linear model – extracted, processed, and discarded – which wastes resources and drives costs higher.
Unsold bread, for instance, can be upcycled into bread kvass or beer, turning surplus bread into valuable products. Collaborations like these form the basis of circular hubs, networks that enable businesses to fully utilise raw materials while minimising waste, reducing their carbon footprint, and fostering local economies.
Examples of circular cooperation include Helsinki’s Nolla restaurant, which sources local, seasonal ingredients, and Copenhagen’s Silo, which uses reusable packaging to reduce costs and plastic waste.
The birth of our Circular Hub concept
The idea for organising circular hubs rooted in local resources and communities arose from our experience running our former enterprise Handelek, a small artisanal restaurant and bakery in Krakow since 2017. The pandemic and subsequent restrictions forced us to rethink every element of our operations – organisational, financial, environmental, and relational.
Small and medium-sized restaurants, already vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and rising costs, face additional challenges as they navigate global environmental and social issues. Many lack the time, resources, and expertise to innovate and adopt sustainable practices.
We believe that circular hubs, starting with small and medium-sized restaurants, can play a critical role in building a sustainable food service industry.
Supporting the development of circular hubs
Our idea of circular hubs has gained significant traction among influential organizations, including EIT Food and For Solutions, led by Agnieszka Małkiewicz, a key player in the European food service industry. With support from industry experts, both local and international, we are developing standards and ready-made tools to help operators create circular hubs in their communities.
Through workshops, we aim to provide resources and strategies for transforming businesses to become more circular and sustainable.
As Matthew Fraser aptly stated in the Circle Economy & The Circularity Gap Report,
"Transforming our way of life in a circular economy model is feasible, but requires action from many stakeholders. A global circular economy will not happen without radical collaboration."
