Saturday 4 July 2009

Healthy catering commitments

Tuesday 12 May 2009

The Agency is working closely with the UK's largest workplace caterers as well as, restaurant, pub, coffee and sandwich chains to encourage them to enable their customers to make healthier choices when eating out.

In January and July 2008, commitments were published from 11 workplace caterers and two of the largest food suppliers to the catering sector. For many people, the food they eat in the workplace forms a large proportion of the food they eat out, and this work will result in positive changes to more than 1.6 million meals served by these workplace caterers in the workplace every day. In April 2009, these companies published updated documents, describing the progress they have made since their first commitments were published, and setting out their plans for continuing this work throughout 2009.

In November 2008, commitments were published by six high street restaurant chains and in January 2009, by six pub chains. This was followed by commitments from seven coffee and sandwich chains in March 2009 and another nine companies added their commitments in May 2009. This work will be expanded to include commitments from more businesses throughout 2009.

The commitments will be updated to record progress, and include plans for how they will be monitored and reviewed. Individual commitments (measured against a framework) have been made by each company to take account of the differences in the way their business and kitchens work. Therefore, although the companies are committing to similar outputs, they are taking slightly different approaches to delivery.

You can find out more about the companies involved and the commitments they have made below.

Commitments from restaurants and pub chains

Burger King – is a global chain of hamburger restaurants, committed to selling the best burger on the high street. Established in 1954, the company has over 11,000 restaurants in 72 countries worldwide and serves up to three million customers a week in the UK and Ireland.

Domino's – is the UK’s leading pizza delivery operator, specialising in the delivery of delicious made-to-order pizza. In 2008, Domino’s Pizza sold just under 37 million pizzas from over 550 stores in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Greene King – operates over 700 pubs, pub restaurants and hotels. These range from community locals to characterful Inns. In each of these we aim to provide our customers with great quality and value food and drink.

JD Wetherspoon PLC – serving great food, award-winning ales and top-quality brands in almost every town across the UK. We serve food to over 300,000 customers daily, and whether a delicious curry, a family meal or a traditional breakfast, we are committed to sourcing the best ingredients, where possible from the UK.

KFC – is a leading quick service restaurant with over 720 restaurants in the UK. We are dedicated to serving customers with innovative, great tasting products that offer great value. KFC is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands Inc.

McDonald's – is a leading, well-known restaurant chain that serves affordable, good quality food.

Marston's – is the UK's leading independent brewing and pub retailing business operating five breweries across England. Marston’s Inns and Taverns is the managed arm with over 500 pubs and bars including Pitcher & Piano, Bluu and Que Pasa bar groups.

Mitchells & Butler – is the leading operator of managed pubs and pub restaurants in the UK, offering good value food, drink and entertainment in around 2,000 businesses across the country.

Nando's – opened its first restaurant in the UK in 1992 and is famed for its legendary Portuguese flame-grilled PERi-PERi chicken. Delicious bastes in varying degrees of spiciness allow you to choose how hot you want your food.

PizzaExpress – first opened in 1965 and operates over 370 restaurants in the UK. Every PizzaExpress restaurant has an open kitchen where dedicated pizzaiolo chefs hand-make delicious pizzas using great quality ingredients.

Pizza Hut – is UK’s leading family restaurant with over 700 restaurants across the UK, providing customers with the perfect ‘get together’ to enjoy great tasting food at value for money prices.

Subway – is the world's largest submarine sandwich franchise, with over 1,300 stores in the UK and Ireland.

The Restaurant Group – operates over 350 restaurants and pub restaurants predominantly in leisure locations and airports, serving over 33 million meals annually. Its brands include Frankie and Benny’s, Chiquito & Garfunkel’s.

The Spirit Group – is the managed house division of Punch Taverns, consisting of 864 high quality pubs across the UK, serving an average of nearly 700,000 meals a week.

Tragus – operates well recognised brands such as Cafe Rouge, Bella Italia and Strada. With over 270 restaurants across the UK, we serve meals to around 20 million delighted customers every year.

Whitbread – is the UK's largest hotel and restaurant company operating market-leading businesses in the budget hotels and restaurant sectors. Its brands include Premier Inn, Beefeater, Table Table, Brewers Fayre, Taybarns and Costa Coffee.

Wimpy – is a franchised casual dining chain with over 170 restaurants in the UK. Serving freshly cooked food all day and offering everything from breakfast to delicious desserts.

Commitments from coffee shop and sandwich chains

BB’s Coffee & Muffins – is the fifth largest coffee focused food operator in the UK and has 184 predominately franchised stores across UK and Ireland (148 UK, 36 Ireland) with nearly all products made freshly each day in the store.

Caffè Nero Group Ltd – was founded in 1997 and is currently the largest independent coffee retailer in the UK, with over 390 Caffè Nero stores. Its aim is to provide a European style coffee house experience offering premium espresso-based gourmet coffee, authentic Italian food products and a relaxing atmosphere in every store.

Camden Food Co. – is a little oasis for healthier eating on the move. It is about fresh, quality food with healthier choices for a balanced approach to eating right. Camden Food Co.operates 10 sites and serves around 33,000 commuters a week.

Costa – is the UK’s biggest coffee chain shop with over 870 shops in the UK offering food that goes best with coffee serving around 1.8 million customers a week.

EAT – is a family-owned company dedicated to quality food. Owned and run by the founders, Niall and Faith MacArthur, who both like good food and service. In February 2009, 100 EAT shops are trading around the UK.

Greggs – is the UK’s leading bakery retailer specialising in sandwiches, savouries and other baker-fresh food on the go. Greggs has over 1400 shops throughout the UK. It employs 19,000 people and serves over five million customers per week.

John Lewis Restaurants – is the largest department store retailer in the UK, with 27 shops throughout the UK. It serves in excess of 8 million customers per year in its customer catering outlets.

Pret A Manger – first opened in 1986 and operates 193 shops in the UK. Every Pret shop has its own kitchen (except for one or two of the tiny ones) where they make their sandwiches and salads fresh every day.

Sainsbury's – is a leading UK food retailer and serves 400,000 customers per week across 240 in-store cafés. Sainsbury’s café is committed to providing its customers with healthy, safe, fresh and tasty food.

Starbucks Coffee – since 1971 the company has been committed to ethically sourcing and roasting the highest quality Arabica coffee in the world. There are now over 700 stores across the UK and Ireland. Starbucks welcomes around 2 million customers a week in the UK.

Upper Crust – specialises in serving freshly prepared baguettes baked throughout the day. Sixty of the Upper Crust outlets in the UK, run by the company SSP, serve 200,000 travelling customers each week.

Commitments from suppliers to catering businesses

3663 First for Foodservice – is the UK’s leading foodservice wholesale distributor, providing more than 30,000 schools, hospitals, hotels, pubs, restaurants and other catering outlets with ambient, frozen, fresh, chilled and speciality food and beverages.

Brakes – is the leading supplier of chilled, frozen and ambient foods and non-food products to caterers across the UK.

Commitments from catering businesses and foodservice providers

7 Day Catering – is one of the UK's leading independent contract catering companies with over 150 clients in the B&I and education sectors. The company ethos is to provide fresh, quality, authentic, homemade and healthy menu choices.

ARAMARK – is a service partner to organisations across a range of sectors, including business and industry, judicial, education, healthcare, offshore and defence. We employ over 12,500 employees to deliver tailor-made foodservice and refreshment solutions.

Artizian – provides fresh food to clients in restaurants, cafés, coffee bars, licensed bars, and through reception, office and hospitality services. It has a growing national portfolio of 20 units, serving approximately 5,000 meals each day.

autograph – Autograph Foodservice (part of the Rentokil Initial Group) offers dynamic business and industry catering solutions throughout the UK, and currently operates 170 diverse contracts.

BaxterStorey – as the UK's leading independent contract caterer, BaxterStorey offers a catering service that focuses on delivering a quality product to its customers using fresh ingredients prepared by well trained and motivated teams.

Charlton House – is an independent caterer with 150 contracts in its portfolio, including business and industry clients, prestigious venue catering and commercial restaurants. It serves about 200,000 meals per week.

Compass Group – leading foodservice company Compass Group UK & Ireland provides food and support services to clients and customers in the workplace, at schools and colleges, hospitals, at leisure, and in defence, offshore and remote locations.

Elior UK – is a creative foodservice company, whose operating companies supply catering and related services to over 1,000 clients throughout the UK, in the private sector for business and industry, education and healthcare; as well as contracts for heritage sites, the travel sector, sporting venues and in retail.

Harbour & Jones – is an independent caterer. It currently operates 23 contracts over 19 sites, serving approximately 7000 meals per day it encourages the creativity of its chefs and food is freshly prepared on site daily.

ISS Eaton – specialises in the provision of workplace dining – whether this is in staff restaurants, general hospitality or fine dining. The company operates across 95 client sites nationwide.

ISS Mediclean – is the UK health division of the global ISS Group. It provides full facility services to the NHS and private hospitals and employs around 13,000 people in more than 300 units across the country.

Sodexo – provides food and facilities management services to over 2,300 locations in the UK and Ireland, with clients ranging from those in business and industry, healthcare, education and defence, to a wide ranging leisure portfolio including sporting venues, visitor attractions and prestigious events.

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Healthy catering commitments

Commitments from restaurants and pub chains

Commitments from coffee shop and sandwich chains

Commitments from suppliers to catering businesses

Commitments from catering businesses and foodservice providers

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