Catering giant Compass has unveiled an ambitiousseries of 'pledges' as part of a new strategy to champion health and wellbeing.
The pledges form part of Compass Group UK & Ireland's 2020 strategy, and have been divided into three areas - Healthier Food, Healthier Lives and Healthier Futures.
The initiatives will focusing on increasing consumption of fruit and vegetables, as well as reducing calories, fat and salt from food. Measurable goals include serving two million extra portions of fruit and vegetables each year, cutting out salt from recipes and removing 50 million more calories from meals.
The group also outlined plans to provide 'multi-channel' access to health and wellbeing information and expandon the education it provides to both adults and children through health MOTs and children’s education programmes.
In further moves, Compass is establishing its own foundation to help fund research in this area, and has teamed up with MyFitnessPal. From October, thousands of recipes from across Compass’ sector businesses will be searchable through the MyFitnessPal app, providing an easier way for customers to keep an eye on what they eat.
Dennis Hogan, managing director ofCompass Group UK & Ireland, said: “Health and wellbeing is now a prime consideration for our customers. The foodservice industry has a key role to play in providing access to more healthy options and helping educate people about the importance of maintaining a healthy, balanced diet.
'I believe our 2020 strategy outlines some bold pledges that put innovation at the heart of our health and wellbeing vision and will ensure we continue to lead and champion health and wellbeing in the foodservice sector for many years to come.”
Nicky Martin, head of nutrition at Compass, added : “Working through the pledges enables us to help address key public health issues and really focus on the issues causing health concerns for us as a population. As the UK’s largest foodservice provider we recognise that we have a responsibility and opportunity to help feed change and fight obesity and these pledges reflect our commitment in this area. I’m really excited about the benefits that the changes we introduce will have for our customers, for our organisation and the wider industry.”
