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FOOD WASTE & TASTE
With the United Nations stating that one-third of the world’s food goes to waste, a key strategy for the company is in its commitment to reduce food waste by 50 per cent by next year, five years ahead of the UN’s sustainable development goal to halve food waste globally by 2030. To help measure the ordering, storage, preparation and serving processes across Sodexo sites, the company invested in WasteWatch, a measurement system that provides data on what kitchens are throwing away and why.
Says Haley: “Because WasteWatch allows us to measure waste onsite, it starts to become part of the food production process. This allows our teams to work with clients to measure their footprint, not just around food waste but around emissions created through travel, so they can make data informed decisions to collectively understand how they can reduce emissions and waste at site level.
“The reason that is so important is because the vast majority of our Scope 3 emissions are either through suppliers or partners and if we don’t address the food planning point we won’t reduce food waste.”
In tandem with this, Sodexo’s Appetite for Action, was launched in 2021 to work alongside political and industry stakeholders, chefs and customers to drive meaningful change in food service procurement and help cut food waste. Through the campaign the company recommended Government implement food waste reporting for large organisations, while Defra published its response to the consultation in July 2023, in November it withdrew its response and is currently reconsidering introducing mandated reporting on food waste.
Explains Haley: “As a food business committed to net zero we want to ensure we play our part in supporting sustainable diets and changing behaviours around how we see food. This in turn revolves around food choices and consumer awareness of their impact on the planet.”
WORKPLACE FOODSERVICE DELIVERY
One of the greatest challenges for foodservice providers is the impact of hybrid working patterns on workplace catering, but Haley believes the changes were already on the way prior to the pandemic and only been accelerated.
Sodexo had already invested in a range of ‘click and collect’ food apps which enable consumers to pre-order and personalise their food, while significantly for a traditional foodservice supplier it has also embraced new workplace food delivery models.
Explains Haley: “We’ve acquired a company called Fooditude that centrally produces excellent food delivered into mainly city organisations that don’t have space for catering facilities. Whenever I want to evidence this I take whoever is interested to the central kitchen and they can actually see the food being produced. Then we follow it to the client in the city and see nutritious meals served to a high standard. It’s this kind of innovation that helps us meet changing demands.
“In this way we’ve invested in both the latest technology, acquired new capabilities and trained and developed our people to operate in a changing environment. It’s all about flexibility and agility which not only helps with labour deployment but with waste, which is critical.”
VALUE ADDED SERVICES
While Haley acknowledges that Sodexo’s DNA is as a food business the company has also committed in the UK to delivering other workplace experience services where he believes it can add real value.
“The workplace is so important now, whether in a manufacturing environment, a corporate environment, a school, university or a hospital we’ve got to be capable of delivering a broader range of services and our people are at the heart of that.”
This means that a key priority for the company is in recruitment and retention and has seen the inclusion of a range of new benefits, including equal parental leave, new or enhanced leave for a variety of appointments, enhanced life insurance for salaried and frontline staff as well as the opportunity to make flexible working applications from their first day of joining Sodexo.
“Alongside this” says Haley, “is our training and development programmes, 80 per cent of our management positions are filled internally. We’ve also taken part in the 10,000 Black Interns programme that addresses the racial gap in leadership positions. Some of the interns we have are still with us to drive our goal of supporting an inclusive workforce and being an employer of choice.”
