Practical tips for caterers
If you want practical advice about how to give your customers the choice to eat more healthily, or to help your staff or students learn about healthy catering, check out the information in this section.
Whether you want to offer some appetising healthy specials, make simple but effective changes to all the food you offer, or give your students the tools to make these choices, these are practical tips and explanations for the reasoning behind them. You will also find some sample recipes showing how dishes can be made healthier, for example by changing the fat or calorie content.
This advice is for you if:
- you run a café, restaurant or sandwich bar
- you are a chef lecturer or trainer providing catering courses, or you are an assessor of job-based catering training
- you are studying for qualifications or training as a caterer
Find out more
Why is healthy catering important?
With more and more food being prepared and eaten outside the home, you are in a position of influence. If you work in a school or college, staff canteen or local sandwich bar, you may well be serving the same customers every day, so you will be serving up a significant portion of their diets. This means you can really make a difference.
What is a healthy balanced diet?
Healthy eating is about getting the balance right. In practice this means having a variety of foods, basing meals on starchy foods and eating at least five portions of fruit and veg a day.
Planning your menu
Small changes can make a big impact. This section provides practical tips for making meals healthier, provides money-saving ideas and gives examples of the nutritional differences in traditional and healthier dishes.
Choosing and preparing food
This section takes you through breakfast, main meals, desserts, snacks and drinks, explaining how each of these can play their part in helping you create healthy balanced menus. There is also information on how you can add fruit and veg throughout your menu to help your customers bump up their daily portions.
Marketing your healthier menu
You'll need to know your customers before working out how to pitch your healthier menu. Some people will be delighted by your efforts and will want to hear it straight. Others may be put off by terms such as 'healthy' or 'low fat'.
Healthier catering food quiz
Now see if you know the answers to the following quiz questions. You will find all the answers at the end of the quiz.
Student tips
Here are some practical tips and suggestions that you might want to print off.
Healthier catering and special diets resources
You might find some of the following links and publications useful.