Balanced Choices is a company-wide drive to improve nutritional awareness across all foodservice sectors.

The concept, which launched in September 2005, uses an icon system to identify healthier, more environmentally friendly, or lifestyle food choices, such as 'low fat', 'vegetarian', 'dairy free' or 'sustainable fish stocks'.

The approach reflects increased public interest in nutrition and wellness. Increasingly, individuals are choosing what they eat based not just on how something tastes or how many calories it contains, but also their individual nutritional goals, environmental concerns and even community and global political issues. Clients, from schools to corporations, are also telling us they want great-tasting, healthier options and the educational support to encourage consumers to choose them.

Key employees receive one day's training, covering an introduction to Balanced Choices, basic nutrition, and putting the concept into practice.

They also receive a briefing pack to support their units.  Additionally there is a master campaign board identifying the food philosophies of the relevant operating company, which explains the meaning of the icons, and has pockets to hold monthly 'nutri-grams' – information leaflets about a range of issues from 'portion size' to 'wholegrains for health'. Other resources include a recipe pack and features on superfoods.

Balanced Choices is tailored to each operating company's needs, with Scolarest, for example, developing some of its own icons to put on menus and the Scolarest website to inform parents and staff of which meals contain added fruit or vegetables.