Agency work with catering businesses
The foods we eat outside the home make up an increasingly important part of our diet. Dietary surveys show that men consume about a quarter of their calories outside the home, and women about a fifth – and the food we eat outside the home tends to be higher in fat, salt and sugar.
For many people, the food they eat in the workplace forms a large proportion of the food they eat out. Around three million meals are eaten at work every day, two million of which are prepared by contract caterers. Meals in the workplace are sometimes the only option for employees and they can account for at least one main meal per day, sometimes more.
For these reasons, the Agency is developing a strategy for working with the catering sector, including workplace caterers, employers, restaurants and pubs. The approach encourages catering businesses to commit to activities that will help their customers to make healthier choices – the commitments are both voluntary and public.
Working with major workplace caterers is an important first step towards enabling people to make sensible, informed decisions to help achieve a balanced diet, no matter where they eat.
Commitments from companies providing workplace catering
The Agency has worked closely with the largest catering companies operating in the business and industry sector in the UK, and is pleased to publish their voluntary commitments to practical changes that will deliver benefits to consumers eating at work throughout the country. This will result in positive changes to the 1.5 million meals served by these companies in the workplace every day, and around the same number again in other settings.
The Agency also welcomes commitments made by the two largest food suppliers to the catering sector, to continue action that will support the efforts of caterers, in every part of the sector, to provide healthier choices for their customers.
You can find out more about the companies, and the commitments they have made at one of the links below. The commitments will be updated to record the progress, and include plans for how they will be monitored and reviewed. Individual commitments (against a framework) have been made by each company to take account of the differences in the way their business and kitchens operate. Therefore, although the companies are committing to similar outputs, they are taking slightly different approaches to delivery.
Commitments from major employers
The Agency is also working with major employers, to encourage them to ensure their staff are offered healthier food options at work.
Industry members of the Nutrition Strategy Steering Group, chaired by the Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo and Agency Chair Deirdre Hutton, have agreed to work with the Agency on a series of pilot projects.
More details of the work with Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda, Marks & Spencer, Unilever and Pepsico, will be available shortly, as well as details of how the Agency's work in this area will contribute to, and support, other Government work on employee health and wellbeing. In the meantime, the Agency welcomes action from other companies who wish to undertake similar projects in their staff catering arrangements, and would be happy to discuss their plans.
Extending work to other parts of the sector
In many cases, eating out is a leisure activity and a treat – we don’t want to change that. But for many of us, eating out is also becoming part of our regular diet. The Agency therefore intends, as our strategy develops, to encourage as many catering businesses as possible to contribute to our work to give people the opportunity to make healthier choices when eating outside the home – but to do so in a way that fits the style of their business and the needs of their customers.
The Agency therefore intends to work with businesses in other sectors of the food service and catering industry – including family dining chains, pub and restaurant chains and quick service restaurants – and build on the good work that has already been carried out by some companies in these sectors.
More details on our plans will be published in 2008. In the meantime, we would be keen to hear about the work that has already done by food businesses and your plans for the future.
This work feeds into the Department of Health's Obesity Strategy 'Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives', which can be found at the link below.
External links The Food Standards Agency has no responsibility for the content of external websites
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Further information for catering companies
The following information tells you more about the kind of approach we want to take with regard to healthy catering, and how your company can be involved.
Healthy catering commitments
You can read the healthy catering commitments made by caterering companies in the documents on this page.