By Alan Little, Business Development Manager, ECA Group

The Restaurant Group Plc (TRG) is a significant player in the UK casual dining market, operating over 500 restaurants and pubs which include Frankie and Benny’s, Chiquito, Coast to Coast, Garfunkel’s, Firejacks, Brunning & Price and Joe’s Kitchen.

They also operate a concession business which trades over 60 outlets across more than 30 brands, primarily in UK airports.

One of TRG’s core principals is sustainability and as such a decision was taken in 2013 to implement an energy management programme to reduce wastage across all sites.

ECA manage TRG’s entire portfolio and provide energy procurement, bill validation, compliance and energy management services.

ECA’s Approach

ECA created a strategy to monitor and highlight energy wastage which included regular and detailed consumption analysis, tailored reporting, remote management of exceptions directly with sites, site surveys and behavioural change sessions.

Historic consumption data was analysed against operational hours and other site benchmarks to create profile targets for each meter and site. Monitoring of HH & AMR data on a daily basis using profile usage alarms detected consumption outside targeted thresholds.

These were investigated by speaking directly to site staff to determine the cause and put measures in place to prevent recurrence.

Where a cause could not be established remotely a site survey was arranged to investigate possible causes and rectify issues on site where possible.

Some of the issues that were regularly identified included, broken equipment, misunderstanding of how to use equipment settings for the best effect, and general wastage behaviours such as having equipment on when it is not required.

ECA also attended local and national group events to deliver energy saving tips and advice to TRG staff.

Results

ECA has provided its Virtuous Energy reduction service since 2013 and has achieved year on year savings averaging 5.3% against a target of 2.5%. Last year (2017) we achieved savings of around £500K.

ECA Group – TRG Group Service supplier of the Year

In July this year ECA were awarded service supplier of the year, a fantastic achievement as they were selected from over 100 suppliers.

ECA are still providing this service to TRG and we expect further savings going forwards.