We all know the feeling. Your eyes are glazing over. There's a dull throbbing at your temples. You've got so much work to get through, but before you know it, you've conked out at your desk or over the stove. There's strong evidence to suggest your drowsiness could be caused by what you had - or didn't have - for lunch.
There is a common perception that lighter meals are healthier and will stave off mid-afternoon fatigue. But independent catering consultant Adrian Stokes believes the rise of the grab-and-go trend has nothing to do with health, and everything to do with time pressures. "Workforces in business and industry will generally be more unhealthy because of this shift away from the meat-and-two-veg hot lunch taken together in the staff restaurant," he says.
Led by the success of high-street chains such as Pret A Manger, deli-bars are now a well-established feature of most companies' food service areas. At many of BaxterSmith's contracts, sales at the deli-bar outstrip those at the traditional hot food restaurant by 25%.
So could contractors afford to do away with hot food altogether? In Stokes's experience, where clients have switched to just a deli-bar, there has been pressure to extend the range to include hot potatoes, soups and hot pasta dishes within six months.
The demand for quick and "healthy" food is entirely client-driven. In some cases, it comes from clients' HR and occupational health departments, but mostly from the employees themselves. Recognising that time pressures can make it difficult to eat a healthy balanced diet, large catering firms are beginning to use nutritionists to market grab-and-go choices or devise menus that claim to enhance energy and concentration levels.
Initial employs two full-time nutritionists. For its business and industry (B&I) division, Autograph, they have come up with the "defence" pack, along the lines of a detox meal and containing a fruit smoothie, rice salad, a fish-based sandwich and a fruit pot. The "morning after the night before" pack includes a hot egg bap, flapjack, orange juice and water. The "essential bone-building" pack includes a jacket potato with cottage cheese, milk shakes and yogurt or a hot dessert with custard.
Eurest's corporate accounts sector, which has 700 blue chip sites, is rolling out a health promotion programme following a pilot scheme. Leaflets and posters will advise employees on a balanced diet. Jacqui Copp, part-time dietitian for corporate accounts, says: "We're not concentrating on weight loss or low-salt, low-sugar diets. The aim is to get across the idea of a balanced diet. It would be misleading to promote one food over another."
Each site will be expected to include one healthy choice, for example using unglazed vegetables and plain rice or potatoes.
With 80 clients and annual sales of £26m, Charlton House has commissioned research from a nutritionist, but has not yet decided whether, or how, to use it. The crux of the research is how eating choices should produce a constant supply of glucose to the brain. The advice includes ensuring customers don't drink more than two cups of tea or coffee a day, and avoid highly salted snacks which cause dehydration. The nutritionist also recommends food is eaten in a relaxed environment and enough time given to ensure complete digestion, but chief executive Robyn Jones accepts that caterers cannot enforce meal times on their corporate customers. "At the end of the day, it's a lot of common sense. It's down to the individual. We all know what we should do."
BaxterSmith, with annual sales of £16m and about 35 contracts, does not use a nutritionist. Executive chairman William Baxter explains: "We've got sufficient expertise in-house to cover the B&I market. We offer the opportunity to eat healthily as a matter of course. Our customers are well-educated, well-paid and expect to see it. There's so much education about what healthy eating is that all we do is endorse it, not shove it down their throats."
Baxter says the key is acting on opinions from clients and giving them what they want, in some cases gluten-free or wheat-free dishes. He recognises that healthy food can be an effective marketing tool. Good labelling is important, not just to give information, but to attract the customer. BaxterSmith includes calorific values and Weight Watchers' points, while Charlton House labels dishes as having a high, medium or low fat content.
At Autograph, Initial has flagged up the benefits of its packs to the customer. For instance, the defence pack contains the recommended amount of carbohydrates to keep the brain and muscles energised. Its morning after the night before pack comprises food rich in essential amino acids, electrolytes and water that are said to help relieve hangovers. And the essential bone-building pack is rich in calcium, which maintains bone density and helps to prevent bone loss.
Code of practice
It is important to remember that health claims for foods must follow a code of practice laid down by the Joint Health Claims Initiative. For example, they should not unfairly denigrate other foods or imply that normal foods cannot provide a healthy diet. Labels are not allowed to claim that food can treat, prevent or cure any disease or adverse condition. The law says any claim must be true and not misleading, although it does not require claims to be checked before they can be used, or specify the wording of the claim.
So, if you have avoided patronising your customers, bombarding them with science, and successfully fulfilled their health-conscious needs, what is the effect of healthy eating on the bottom line?
The general consensus is that the rise of health-conscious eating has not increased overall turnover or profit margins, although organic dishes do command a higher price. Scientific research in the USA has reached the same conclusions.
The entire UK market for health foods has grown by 0.5% since 2000 to reach a value of £423.4m in 2001. It is forecast to grow by 2.1% to reach £432.4m by 2006.
A study by the University of Minnesota showed that sales increased when the price of low-fat snacks was lowered at 12 work sites. Price-cutting was found to be more effective than health messages in increasing health food sales. Some British B&I clients request that healthy choices have lower prices than other dishes.
But although it may not improve profitability, introducing a healthy diet to your customers could certainly make the difference between keeping or losing the contract. As Stokes puts it: "If a caterer were to go in with a total disregard for healthy eating, they'd fall flat on their faces."
A new opportunity?
Some contract caterers might be sceptical about using nutritionists, but Michael da Costa sees a bright and lucrative future in serving the time-poor and health-conscious consumer. Da Costa, former chairman of the Restaurant Association, sold the Richoux chain to Groupe Chez Gérard for £7.25m in 1998 and started the Food Doctor venture the following year.
He held discussions with nutritionists and recipe book authors Vicki Edgson and Ian Marber about a chain of health food restaurants, but then took a different course.
The Food Doctor business has since expanded from a book publisher into producing its own range of health foods and providing nutrition consultancy services. Turnover, 66% of which comes from branded food products, has risen from £300,000 in 1999 to £3.5m last year.
The next step is to establish long-term relationships with contract caterers. So far, at the request of clients in the City of London where it has a consultancy service, the Food Doctor has started work with Compass division Restaurant Associates, endorsing healthy menu choices and selling its products in staff restaurants.
"The market for our services should be huge," says da Costa. "It's not going to be enough to pay lip service with fruit and salad bars. Caterers need a lot of help in taking more responsibility for delivering the right information and product."