What are the issues?
As a leader in the hotels, restaurants and coffee shop markets we want to help our customers to make healthier food choices.
Publicity on the relationship between food, nutrition and health means that our customers are increasingly aware of the need to eat a balanced diet. In particular, obesity is a growing problem in the UK. It is linked to various health problems such as heart disease and diabetes. The food we eat is a contributory factor, along with other lifestyle choices such as the amount of exercise we take. The Department of Health has estimated that over 50% of adult men and women in the UK could be obese by 2050.
There is also considerable publicity about binge drinking and the effects of alcohol on our health, including liver disease, as well as the unnecessary cost to the NHS and other anti-social effects of excessive drinking.
What are we doing about it?
More information, less salt
This year we have begun to publish the nutritional information for all our restaurant menus on the internet. So, for example, if you are planning an evening meal at a Beefeater restaurant, you can now visit the Beefeater website and look up the calories and levels of salt, sugar and fat for each item on the menu before you come out for your meal. A copy of this nutritional information is also available in our restaurants should our customers request it.
In Costa stores, the nutritional information about our bespoke range is shown on individual pack labels. And information about the whole range - including allergens - is available on the Costa website, plus a copy is also available instore on request.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has encouraged food retailers to cut salt and saturated fats in foods. We have already reduced the salt content in the majority of our restaurant recipe dishes and are on target to meet the FSA's 2012 health targets during 2011.
Costa met the FSA's 2010 salt targets across all its own-brand food by the end of 2009, 12 months ahead of the deadline. This involved 30 products across Costa's bakery range and 21 products across the sandwich range.
We also ensure that all our menu items are free from hydrogenated oils and fats, monosodium glutamate, genetically modified materials, colours identified in the Southampton Report, irradiated ingredients and mechanically recovered meat.
Providing choice and tackling higher calorie menu items
We understand the role of business and government in providing guidance and raising awareness about health issues. We can play an important role in the national health agenda by developing a balanced and responsible menu. We can provide clear nutritional information to our customers about what they are eating and present them with a choice of dishes within our menu that suits varying dietary and lifestyle requirements and includes equally tempting lower calorie and vegetarian dishes.
We can also make sure that we offer lower calorie alternatives to our guests. For example, at Beefeater restaurants, you can now choose to have jacket potatoes or corncobs instead of chips, or you can choose salad or vegetables. Where sauces are not an integral part of a dish, we serve them on the side so that diners can choose how much to use.
We are still progressing and now we are working out more ways to improve the health credentials of high calorie dishes over time - while still making sure they are 100% satisfying. This might include, for example, sourcing leaner sausages, or reducing the amount of fat on the rump steak, before they are served.
Costa has introduced smaller/sharing portions of indulgence products such as muffins and biscuits, launching mini muffins, mini brownies and mini shortbread bites and is working to reformulated all its dishes so they are green or amber in the traffic light ratings for the Government's recommended daily allowance for fat and saturated fat. Costa continues to offer skimmed and soya milk alternatives to full fat milk.
Responsible drinking
Our value restaurant business model promotes family orientated
occasions where food, rather than alcohol is the primary focus.
This is evidenced by our restaurant sales; revenues are circa 70%
food and only 30% drinks, including alcohol.
In addition, we take positive steps to support responsible
drinking. We make sure that we provide a good choice of both
alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. We support the DrinkAware
initiative and display their website address on all menus. In
addition, all our menus bear the alcoholic strength of wines and a
table of the number of alcohol units against the alcoholic
strength.
Working in partnership
Over the past year we have worked closely with the Food Standards Agency (FSA). We are active members of the Pub Restaurant Forum where together with our competitors in our sector we have been exploring how to make a difference on health issues.
We have also worked closely with our manufacturing suppliers. We have convened group meetings with our 24 main suppliers so they can understand the FSA agenda on salt and saturated fats. And because our recipe dishes are made to our specification, we are in a position to adjust recipes, for example to reduce salt. When we change our menus, we take the opportunity to introduce these lower salt recipes, in some cases this can be done in one single change, if the dish is spicy for example. In others, the salt will be reduced over a 12 month period in line with the FSA's gradual reduction.
We are also doing more menu coaching with our chefs and general managers, to explain the work of the FSA and our stance on key health issues.
Gathering customer insight
We continue to survey our customers to understand their views about our menus and specifically to see if they would welcome calorific information on our menus or not. At the moment, about a quarter of our customers say they would be interested to see nutrition information in our restaurants as well as on the Internet.
Next steps
In the 2010/11 fiscal year we will:
- Run a trial publishing calorific information on the menus in a sample of one of our restaurant chains to understand whether this is something of benefit to rollout across one or more of our pub restaurant businesses.
- Work with our suppliers to remove artificial colours and flavourings from all our kids' menus.
- Continue to work with the FSA in the pub restaurant forum and start to engage a wider group of leading external experts on the health agenda.
- Continue to improve the nutritional profile of all Costa own brand products.
- Further engage our food suppliers on healthy eating issues.
- Deepen the engagement with our team members on this topic to make sure they are aware and able to talk to customers about the issues and the healthier options on our menus.
