An eco-friendly partnership
In April 2021, the French arm of a world-famous fast-food chain decided to eliminate plastic bottles from its restaurants, as the final step in the phasing-out of disposable plastics (straws, lids, etc.) required by anti-waste legislation.
Water sold in bottles was among the affected products: from now on, all of the chain’s restaurants would serve microfiltered water in recyclable cardboard cups. The fast-food giant’s ability to take this step was made possible by the solutions and support provided by our European division of Pentair Food Service, and in particular by Foodservice France sales manager Nino Porcarelli and his task force.
The chain revealed its plans to Pentair in spring 2020. Its restaurants were already equipped with Pentair filtration systems for soft drink dispensers, so the ideal solution would be to keep these and use them to offer microfiltered water too.
Aside from the technical issues involved, there were also some important legal questions: would restaurants be allowed to sell ‘microfiltered’ water from the Pentair systems already in place? A lot was at stake for Pentair Food Service: it needed to secure and perpetuate its partnership with the fast-food chain by supporting it throughout its decision-making process.
The assignment was entrusted to Nino Porcarelli. To leave nothing to chance, he created a task force made up of a certification specialist (Marco Simone, Global Regulatory Manager), the commercial filtration product manager (Matteo Colamartino, European Product Manager Commercial Filtration) and a Food Service technical support specialist.
Over the course of a year, Nino and his team supported the restaurant chain mainly on the legal side, providing answers in which there was no room for error, as their accuracy would be of legal significance. This was a complicated undertaking that required a great deal of research, documentation and survey work with the teams.
On the technical side, one of the challenges was to ensure the project’s feasibility with the soft drinks brand supplier: they had to approve Pentair’s technical solution, as they were responsible for the maintenance of the dispensers in each restaurant. After a year of work, the Pentair solution was finally approved by the restaurant chain on both a technical and a legal level; the project was then gradually implemented in all French branches of the chain through to the end of 2021.
Proven water quality with Pentair solutions
The fast-food giant wished to provide high-quality bottle-free water, and for each restaurant to promote this in compliance with national and European standards, including by marketing the water as ‘microfiltered’.
This is precisely what Nino Porcarelli and his team made possible during their year of work, by demonstrating that the chain could continue using the existing Pentair installations for soft drinks and add in bottlefree water on the same basis. The quality of the Pentair installations enabled the task force to prove that the chain would be allowed to advertise its water as high-quality.
The Pentair solution which now ensures the quality of this bottlefree water is an all-in-one system that has been personalised and approved by the soft drinks brand supplier. It is equipped with a pre-filter and a set of three Everpure MC² cartridges, the output from which is linked to the post-mix.
This Pentair solution thoroughly filters tap water next to soft drinks. It now allows each French restaurant in the chain to provide drinking water of certified quality straight from its dispensers, completely eliminating plastic water bottles.
Future solutions for Pentair’s partners
With Pentair’s personalised technical solution and legal support, the fast-food giant has found a way of adapting perfectly to today’s requirements and anticipating future local and international regulations. In addition, it is able to communicate this important development to the general public in full compliance with the standards in force.
The quality of Pentair installations made this approach possible, while the task force’s legal support provided the necessary proof and allowed the chain to make this significant change at minimal cost.
Pentair has thus strengthened its relationship and standing with this important partner. Its product quality and experience will certainly be important assets for the future, as more and more brands face the need to update their practices to comply with French and European regulations.
Nino Porcarelli
Area Sales Manager Foodservice France & Maghreb
