The Dutch hospitality sector (horeca) is facing significant challenges in 2025, including rising operational costs, staffing shortages, and financial pressures. While large hospitality groups can leverage economies of scale to navigate these difficulties, single-owned restaurants and cafes often lack the resources and bargaining power to compete effectively.
This document proposes a cooperative model for independent, sustainability-minded restaurants and cafes in the Netherlands. By forming cooperatives, these establishments can gain similar advantages to hospitality groups while maintaining their unique identities.
The current landscape presents several obstacles for small hospitality businesses:
Sustainability in horeca is not just a matter of good intentions - it’s a matter of capacity and structural barriers.
While more restaurants recognise the importance of sustainable practices, the daily reality of running an independent establishment often leaves little time or financial room for long-term strategic shifts. As a result, many well-intentioned businesses get stuck in survival mode, prioritising urgent operational challenges over sustainability transitions.
Imagine an independent restaurant owner who wants to switch to more sustainable sourcing, reduce food waste, and create a well balanced attractive sustainable menu, but every day, urgent challenges push those goals to the bottom of the priority list. They don’t lack motivation, they lack capacity.
The cooperative model changes this by providing a built-in support system: access to sustainability experts, bulk purchasing advantages, and shared staff who specialise in sustainability and operational efficiency. Instead of sustainability being an overwhelming task, it becomes a source of improvement and efficiency gains.
A hospitality cooperative allows independent businesses to collaborate rather than compete, ensuring mutual benefits while maintaining autonomy.
The key advantages include: