Further information for catering companies

Although for some, eating out will always remain a leisure activity or an occasional treat, for many people, eating outside the home in catering outlets is becoming more popular and is making and increasingly significant contribution to their diet.

We know, from our National Diet and Nutrition Survey, that men derive as much as a quarter of their food energy from foods eaten outside the home, and women about a fifth. We also know that foods eaten outside the home are often higher in fat, salt and sugar than those eaten at home. For these reasons, the Agency wants to ensure that its range of activity to promote healthier diets encompasses the catering sector as well as food retailers and manufacturers. We want to make it easier for consumers to make healthier choices when they eat out.

Eating out is often a treat – and we don't want to change that. We’re not trying to radically alter the eating out experience, and we’re not trying to set a single common standard that all restaurants should achieve. Our aim is to encourage all food businesses to make small, incremental changes that help consumers move in the right direction – because, taken together, all those little changes can add up to significant improvements in individual diets.

Our research has told us that some people don't think it’s possible to make healthy choices when they eat out without having to compromise on things like price, convenience and taste. So we also want to encourage restaurants to deliver improvements without their customers feeling that healthier eating involves making a sacrifice.

The Agency believes that all catering businesses can do something to contribute – in a way that fits within the demands of their business and their customers.

We have developed a flexible framework that identifies the types of activities that companies can undertake to make changes to the food they serve and to help customers make healthier choices. This focuses on the key Agency objectives of reducing salt and saturated fat intakes; helping consumers achieve calorie balance through their food choices and portion control; and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. Using this framework, we will work with businesses to help them design their commitments, which can then be published on our website. We will ask businesses to report back to us on a regular basis on their progress and the benefit they have delivered to their customers.

We recognise that what a given business can achieve depends on the style of food; the size of the business; employees’ skills; the way the kitchen operates; and – most importantly – what the clients and customers ask for. So we know that a 'one size fits all' approach will not work.

Companies can design their commitments to suit their business and their customers. What we are asking for is commitments that support the Agency's healthy eating priorities and strategic targets; that are specific and clear; and, to ensure that commitments are effective in delivering improvements, companies will need to agree on a way of monitoring what happens and the benefits that customers receive as a result.

No. We started by working with these companies because of the huge number of meals they serve and because there was already a lot of good work to build on. Our overall goal it to encourage commitments from as many different companies as possible in all parts of the foodservice sector.

As well as publishing these commitments, we wanted to highlight the work we want to do in this area, and the way we want to go about it.

In the coming months, we will continue the discussions we have started with companies in other parts of the catering sector, including family restaurant chains, pubs and quick service restaurants; and look to establish some new contacts in these areas. We know that many companies across the catering sector have already done a great deal of work to offer their customers healthier choices. For example, a number of restaurant chains have previously provided the Agency with commitments to reduce salt in the foods they serve. We want to increase the number of companies making commitments and are seeking support from other companies by encouraging them to follow these examples of good practice.

Ultimately, our aim is to encourage commitments from as many companies in as many parts of the sector as possible. In the meantime, we would like to hear from any company that is interested in getting involved.

Companies that supply food and services to caterers also have a critical role to play, mainly around reducing levels of saturated fat, added sugars and salt in the products they supply; ensuring they offer a good range of healthier ingredients; and providing information, advice, and practical support to help their customers use their products to provide healthier options.

We welcome commitments from more companies in this part of the sector, and we are keen to build up our contacts in this area.

We recognise that the needs and demands of the client (i.e., the employer that contracts out the catering provision) have a big influence on the type of offer that is provided in staff restaurants. We want to work with major employers to introduce healthier workplace catering more widely. We are currently working with a number of food retailers and manufacturers who are major employers in their own right – to gather more evidence of what is effective. We will publish more detail on this work later in the year, and will be seeking opportunities to influence more employers.

At this stage in our work with catering businesses, we are focusing on the largest companies – in order to influence as many consumers as possible. However, the catering industry is characterised by the thousands of small businesses and independent restaurants in the sector, who between them serve millions of meals every day.

We have deliberately developed an approach that is flexible enough to be used by businesses of all sizes. We will be doing more work later this year to explore how we can make it easier for small businesses to contribute to this work, and to commit to improvements centred around the four themes of our framework. In the meantime, our website has some helpful resources that may help small businesses to identify steps that they can take to offer their customers more healthy choices. These are available at the links below.

To find out more about any of the information in this document contact Mark Browne on 020 7276 8979 or by email mark.browne@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk