Every food service business, from intimate dining rooms to service for hundreds of people, requires drinks along with their cuisine. Drinks can be as simple as tea and water or as complex as craft cocktails. You can’t give beverages without drinkware, regardless of your beverage service approach.
Is it glass or plastic? Plastic glasses from Drinkstuff look virtually identical to glass drinkware. And it’s simple to add personalized logos and designs to plastic drinkware. So, what should you do?
Both of these materials are excellent alternatives, and they may have different effects on service flow and bottom line. Let’s take a look at plastic and glass drinkware to see how they compare. We’ll go through several key areas that may have a big impact on food service operations, including expenses, aesthetics, and broken glass’s effect on operations.
Glass Drinkware for Foodservice vs. Plastic: The Cost
With mounting labour expenditures and challenging competitive environments, Foodservice’s notoriously tight margins appear to be getting even tighter every day. Operators have plenty of reasons to keep a close eye on their expenses and look for savings wherever they can.
Depending on the amount or type purchased, the upfront cost of plastic versus glass drinkware can differ. The cost of replacement differs frequently. However, the expense of plastic drinkware replacements is lower than glass, where operators will realize significant cost savings in the long run.
Glass Drinkware for Foodservice vs. Plastic: Aesthetics
Because of recent improvements in contemporary style and production, foodservice businesses now have more variety when it comes to attractive plastic drinkware than they’ve ever had. We’d be willing to bet that if you were to juxtapose a high-end plastic champaign flute with one made of glass, you’d have to touch one to decide which material it is.
This is excellent news for several reasons. Because it can provide a broader range of plastic styles that mimic glass, operators may use the same expert design to complement a variety of themes. A wide range of plastic beverageware alternatives now exists to match the needs of popular New American designs such as urban industrial, vintage, and farm-to-table companies. Mason jars, stemless wine glass displays, and beer flight mini taster glasses come to mind as examples of premium plastic drinkware. These contemporary alternatives are ideal for a bar with rowdy customers. Another appealing aspect is that most plastic barware can keep ice longer than glass barware.
‘Broken Glass’ Impact on Operations
We all know that plastic is more durable than glass when it comes to drinkware. But think about all the ways broken glass might affect your business. Broken glass is the worst in a food service environment from the type of flooring that makes it easy or difficult for glass to be broken or cleaned to severely slowing your operations and decreasing guest and staff safety.
Take a few moments to consider your flooring.
If drinkware is dropped on carpeted dining rooms, virtually nothing bad can happen. Carpeting, on the other hand, isn’t as popular as it once was. If you do happen to get broken glass on your carpet, it’s really difficult to remove that debris. For weeks or longer, if not permanently, it might be a safety hazard for your staff and visitors.
