Compass procures millions more in veg as healthier meals top the menu

Compass Group UK & Ireland, the UK’s largest food and support services company, is making strides forward in its health and wellbeing targets. In its second year of reporting, it has recorded a further reduction in salt, fat and saturated fat*, in thousands of recipes - alongside procuring and serving more vegetables.

Compass’ 50,000 strong team, serves 214 million meals annually within the UK and Ireland. It’s team of Registered Nutritionists and Dietitians have analysed 24,000 recipes this year, building on the success of 2023. The focus has remained on reducing the levels of fat, saturated fat and salt using the traffic light labelling criteria**. 

The analysis of the data shows:

• Almost 88% of Compass recipes are low or medium in fat – this equates to >21,000 recipes.
• Over 93% of recipes are low or medium in salt.
• 94% of dishes are low or medium in sugar.
• 4% increase in veg portions procurement compared with 2022 (80g portions).***

Compass has enhanced its healthy eating philosophy and progress through a number of key initiatives within sectors. This is alongside overall targets, which will see less than 10% of its dishes being high in saturated fat and less than 5% of its dishes being high in salt by 2030, while also increasing positive nutrients, embedding behavioural science, and educating customers, clients, and its own people. Compass is also on track to reduce sugar ahead of Government reduction targets.

As an example of success, Compass’ Business and Industry sector has achieved great results across its 12 top selling meals. Rather than reducing portion size, the reformulated options are 28g larger, through the inclusion of beans and pulses. This is seen across 209,029 meals sold every year and has resulted in reductions of:

• 1.9m kcal; the equivalent of over 7,600 chocolate bars.****
• 215,932g of fat; the equivalent of removing more than 200,000 litres of cooking oil.
• 88,198g of saturated fat; the equivalent weight of 176 blocks of butter.
• Increased fibre 648,223g; more than 341,000 apples.

Compass’ Nourished Life website has continued to gain traction in supporting health and wellbeing information and education. Activity includes:

• Held quarterly webinars viewed by more 300 people for each session, covering key nutritional themes such as plant forward and heart health.
• Supported more than 50 clients with Nourished Life pop up events.
• Supported Compass’ ED&I agenda with workshops around female health and mental wellbeing for its Women in Food community and YouMatter, mental health awareness

Nicky Martin, Head of Nutrition, Compass Group UK&I said: “Feeding everyone from school children, through to those working in defence and people staying or visiting a hospital comes with a big responsibility. As the UK’s largest food and services provider, we have a duty to provide access to healthy and nutritious meals.

“This progress shows that our work is gaining traction in meeting our overall targets, set for 2030. We have achieved a huge amount through menu reformulation, and we continue to make steady progress. We have a team of dedicated experts leading this agenda and am looking forward driving further innovation in this area.”

NOTES

All figures are related to 2023

*Saturated fats are found in many foods, both sweet and savoury. Most of them come from animal sources, including meat and dairy products, as well as some plant foods, such as palm oil and coconut oil. Eating too much saturated fats in your diet can raise "bad" LDL cholesterol in your blood, which can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Cholesterol is a fatty substance that's mostly made by the body in the liver. It's carried in the blood as: low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL).

**The traffic light labelling system will tell you whether a food has high, medium or low amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt. The traffic light label is colour coded and shows that green is low in a particular nutrient, amber means medium and red is high in a nutrient.

• Red means the product is high in a nutrient and you should try to cut down, eat less often or eat smaller amounts.
• Amber means If a food contains mostly amber, you can eat it most of the time.
• Green means low. The more green lights a label displays, the healthier the food is.

*** Based on 80g adult portion size and a 50g child’s portion size

**** Based on average chocolate bar containing 250 calories.

As a business we have been refining our offers to align with sustainability activity. 24,000 recipes represents live recipes in operation at time of analysis.

https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/fop-guidance_0.pdf