by Dani Grigg

Employees of Boise-based Bevinco of Idaho spend their days surrounded by alcohol. They’re  measuring it, looking for the week-over-week inconsistencies that mean drinks are escaping from bars or restaurants without pay.

“Usually it’s bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles,” said Bevinco of Idaho co-owner Courtney Broussard.

Her explanation is simple: Bartenders give free drinks to friends, over-pour, lose track of what they’ve served and sometimes steal.

Bevinco, part of a Canada-based franchise, helps clients hold bartenders accountable for the disappearing drinks.

A recent bar audit showed 35 full bottles of liquor, 200 bottles of beer and more than 100 cans of Red Bull were unaccounted for. On average, bars and restaurants come up short 20 percent to 25 percent, Broussard said.

“We can stop that from happening,” Broussard’s partner Amy Van Tassel said. “That can pull them further into the sink hole of this economy.”

When restaurant and bar owners find out they’re losing an average of $2,500 a week on unpaid drinks, Bevinco’s near $200-a-week fee becomes worth it.

While businesses look to trim waste anywhere they can in order to stay afloat, companies like Bevinco are coming out ahead.

Bevinco has about 20 clients throughout Boise, Meridian, Eagle, Kuna and Mountain Home, with a few new ones signing up in the last few weeks. Van Tassel said potential clients have started calling Bevinco to ask about their services rather than waiting for Bevinco to come to them.

In this economy, businesses want to make sure they’re not letting due profits walk out the door, Broussard said.

This same principle has allowed another Boise-based business, Sustainable Innovations, to hold strong despite clients’ plummeting disposable income.

Sustainable Innovations focuses on energy efficiency and packaging waste for food and drug retailers, distribution companies, Idaho Power, hospitals and more.

John Bernardo, principal at Sustainable Innovations, said he recommends changes in both practices and equipment to improve energy efficiency. And he finds ways to modify packaging materials so the materials can be sold to paper mills and other facilities rather than being carted off to landfills.

Bernardo said energy procurement and waste hauling generally make up about 40 percent of a company’s operating cost, and slight changes can reduce that expense by 25 percent. An even higher reduction can be achieved with more effort.

He said he has a bit of a misconception to overcome before businesses realize what kind of money his services can save them.

“Nobody is going to say they’re against the environment, but if they think all sustainability does is minimize the impact on the environment, they’re going to say ‘I don’t have the money for that right now,’” he said. “…As soon as I can convince them that sustainability is triple bottom-line savings … then I get people’s attention.”

That attention means while his business hasn’t exploded in recent months, it has stayed solid, avoiding the economic beating many companies have taken.

Another service that comes in handy while businesses find ways to make cutbacks is the virtual assisting industry. Businesses that provide freelance bookkeepers, marketers, secretaries and more have found an opportunity to step in where companies have had to lay off full-time staff.

Ramona Tullis started a business assistant company called Busiants last year as the economy started to flag, and she said she’s been amazed at her success.

Between September and now, Busiants has worked with about 30 clients, some of them with steady work and others with temporary projects.

“I’m amazed that with no advertising at all we’ve gotten all these clients that have come on,” she said. “And we’re growing and learning as we’re growing.”