Give peas a chance - Sodexo makes Veg Pledge

Today, Sodexo, the world’s largest services company, joined major supermarkets, food-on-the-go chains and manufacturers at a summit in central London to commit to increasing the amount of vegetables in their meals.

The Peas Please initiative, organised by The Food Foundation, focuses on securing commitments from industry and government to improve the availability, acceptability (including convenience), affordability, and quality of the vegetable offer in shops, schools, fast food restaurants and beyond, and in turn stimulate increased vegetable consumption among the UK public, particularly children and those on a low income.

Sodexo is responsible for over one million meals per day that are served in schools, work restaurants, hospitals and armed forces.  At the summit, Sodexo will commit to:

• increasing the volume of vegetable procured by 10% by 2020
• developing current recipes to be more vegetable focused
• continue to mainstream sustainable meals
• support the promotion of vegetable-focused menus across the range of sites where we operate

Research shows that eating too little veg contributes to 20,000 premature deaths in the UK every year and that we should all be eating at least an extra portion every day. Data released by think tank The Food Foundation this summer showed that UK consumers are buying two thirds less veg than the amount recommended by health experts. According to Government guidance on a healthy diet, 20% of our shopping should be made up of vegetables, but in reality we only reach 7.2%.

David Mulcahy, food development and innovation director at Sodexo, said:
“The Peas Please pledge is an opportunity for organisations like Sodexo to help consumers increase their vegetable consumption, through our corporate responsibility commitments, we are committed to offering 100% of our consumers’ healthy lifestyle choices every day.”

Sodexo has been working with the WWF over the last four years to create a set of 35 sustainable recipes, under the Green & Lean banner, with vegetables accounting for two-thirds of the volume of the meal.