Foodservice forum: Healthy eating

How do you promote healthy eating?

Charlotte Newman
Nutrition manager, BM
Promoting healthy eating is crucial for overall wellbeing. As a nutritionist, my ethos is to make nutritious eating an enjoyable and achievable experience, as well as to empower individuals to make better lifestyle choices. These always need to be sustainable through education, they need to motivate, and they need to adopt practical approaches to ensure that people truly engage with the process. 

Knowledge is power and our BM vitality pop-ups raise awareness on key nutritional topics by providing customers with practical guidance and evidence-based information. There is a lot of controversy about what exactly constitutes a healthy diet, which can be very misleading and confusing. Vitality pop-ups are the perfect vehicle for this, as they aim to increase customer engagement and highlight the importance of nutrition to help provide them with the right information to make more informed choices and decisions to live healthy balanced lifestyles outside of their BM restaurant.

Our approach to assisting customers and clients in understanding nutrition and achieving healthy eating habits involves presenting them with relatable and easily understandable information through interactive games/sessions, blog posts, podcasts and infographics. Additionally, we offer delicious and nutritious recipes that incorporate nutrient-dense and seasonal produce, which customers can try making at home.

At BM, we believe that our teams must represent the values we stand for, which is why we deliver ongoing training on nutrition and provide deliciously healthy meal options for them during their day. We engage and work alongside our chefs and teams to help promote healthy eating habits, as well as improve the nutritional quality of meals.

It is crucial to build relationships, be approachable and have open discussions with the teams about nutrition and the food itself. We do this by offering training sessions and guidance around producing delicious but healthy balanced menus; sharing resources around dietary guidelines; portion sizes and ingredient selection; and raising awareness around healthy eating to produce meals that meet the needs of our customers. 

By creating a culture that is focused on healthy lifestyles and nutrition, we can better aid our clients and customers, and inspire them to make better-informed choices.

Hayley Miller
Marketing director, CH&CO
Delivering promoting healthy eating is really important, and is the reason why we’ve several initiatives across our diverse business that have been developed by our registered nutritionists and chefs. Each has been designed to reflect our sector-specific customer base and help influence choice that makes for a healthier lifestyle.

Through our insight, we know our customers are looking for a wide range of healthier options; whether they’re aiming to eat more fruit and vegetables, reduce calorie intake, or reduce the risk of developing disease, people are becoming more health conscious. It’s not always easy to change people’s eating behaviour, as food choices are bound by many factors such as personal budget and preferences, influences from home-life and, of course, availability. With this in mind, for example, we always ensure healthier options are available in our meal deals to ensure they’re accessible for everyone.

We have a responsibility to provide our customers with healthier food and drink options every day and provide them with support and information to help them make the right choices. Each of our healthy eating initiatives – from Live Well and Nutritious and Delicious in our workplace sites to The Power of Food in our schools – have been created to be health-conscious from the outset. They start at the food preparation and run through planning menus, how we present our counters and providing healthy hospitality offers.

We all eat with our eyes and the layout, positioning and presentation of food has a big impact on what people choose to eat. Small tweaks to the positioning of food can help people make healthier choices without really thinking about it.

For example, water, no-added-sugar drinks and 100% fruit juices and smoothies are all placed at eye level, and where sugar-containing drinks are available, they are placed on lower shelves. On hot counters, healthy options are placed first, followed by the vegetarian/vegan option, then the rest of the day’s offer. Even placing fruit bowls at till points acts as a positive reminder to make sure they’re getting their five a day.

Research has shown that even the name or description of a dish can impact how well people respond to it. However, calling a dish ‘healthy’ can actually put some people off as they do not perceive healthy food to be tasty. What is ‘healthy’ to one person might not be to another, so instead we use descriptive words that attract attention and increase their appeal.

James Ricketts
Content manager, Fooditude
The potential for workplace caterers to inspire healthy food choices is enormous but hasn’t been fully released. However, some caterers, including Fooditude, are expanding their roles to gently encourage diners to adopt healthier eating habits.

Let the food talk for itself 
What sets office caterers like us apart from other areas in hospitality is the continuity of service: many of our diners eat our meals every working day of the week. We are unlike a restaurant or café, where diners can treat themselves to more indulgent 'one-off' dishes.

At some of our client sites, what we cook can make up two-thirds of an employee's weekly meals (if they eat weekday breakfasts, lunches and dinners at the office). As a result, our daily foodservice considerably impacts our diners’ long-term health. 

To make our food programme healthier, at Fooditude we promote a philosophy of cooking from scratch with fresh ingredients, steering clear of overly processed foods. On top of this, we rotate our menus seasonally to make the most of when ingredients are at their best and most nutritious. 

In our kitchens, our chefs keep our food simple and vibrant, showcasing the potential of basic ingredients in dishes such as 'aubergine and sweet potato green curry'. And, if we can inspire diners at the canteen, they may try to replicate what they've enjoyed at home. 

Make healthy food habits the easy choice
In promoting healthy eating to our diners, we must check ourselves and ensure that our efforts are not too forceful or overbearing. After all, no one likes to be told what they should or shouldn’t eat.

A soft approach is required to effectively promote a better way of eating. For example, we give healthy dishes more prominence in our buffets and display items such as fresh salads in an attractive way. 

Another method we use is sharing content on client-site Slack channels and canteen signage. In these messages, we communicate what makes our food healthy – from the benefits of eating seasonally to the advantages of cooking from scratch. 

Food habits: a personal choice
How people eat can be personal and cultural, so promoting healthy eating must be done with a pinch of restraint. At Fooditude, we take a subtle approach. We believe in making healthy eating accessible and attractive without pressuring our diners. Because, as caterers, we can only encourage, not force, healthier eating habits.

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