The UK’s largest caterers and food service suppliers have thrown their collective weight behind a government-led push to provide healthier workplace meals.
Contract catering’s big five – Compass, Sodexho, Aramark, Elior and BaxterStorey – supply around 1.5 million meals a day in the workplace.
They have, for the past year, been working with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and suppliers Brakes and 3663 to reduce salt, sugar and saturated fat levels in everyday dishes.
The work has been pulled together into a series of commitments, now published in full by the FSA.
They focus on the types of products and ingredients businesses buy; how dishes are prepared in the kitchen; the menu choices available; and the nutritional information available to customers.
Viewed as a first step in a bid to tackle the nation’s bulging waistlines, the caterers have put in place a series of systems to measure progress and will report back to the FSA later this year.
Rosemary Hignett, head of nutrition at the FSA, said: “Though we know people prepare and eat the majority of their meals at home, food eaten in the workplace does increasingly make up an important part of our daily diet.”
Raffaella Piovesan, company dietician at Elior UK, added: “We wholeheartedly support the FSA’s initiative to ensure improved quality of ingredients and healthier options to feed the UK workforce.”
“All caterers have a responsibility to ensure workers are provided with a range of options so that they can make informed choices about their food, and we take our role in that process very seriously.”
Read the full commitments made by catering companies and suppliers here >>
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By Chris Druce
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