Foodservice Cateys 2022: CSER Award – Eurest

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In an age where both looking after staff and protecting the environment has never been so important, the CSER Award comes with an extra special recognition of a business’s intent to make the world a better place. This year’s winner, Eurest, has made great strides in its attempts to reach Climate Net Zero by 2030, while encouraging its business and industry clients to join it on the journey.

With high-profile clients including Amazon, Jaguar Land Rover, Fort, Sainsbury’s, Royal Mail and many more, this caterer typically serves 250,000 meals a day across 700 workplaces nationally. That’s a quarter of a million chances to make a difference every single day.

Judges commended Eurest’s application of the wider sustainability goals of its parent company, Compass, to make real-world differences within B&I, pointing specifically to Eurest becoming the first contract caterer to launch eco-labelling, with 3,000 recipes analysed for their environmental impact. The initiative is now in place across five sites.

This eco-labelling project with the University of Oxford – an industry-leading partnership with the University’s Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) team – has led to consumers becoming more informed of their meal choices and led to lower-carbon purchases as a result.

In addition, Eurest has reduced food waste by 30% by allowing chefs to plan more efficiently. This means trimmings and leftovers are now used in planned recipes for the following day. This ‘root to top’ cooking has resulted in new recipes such as coffee grind granola, kale stem pesto, ‘anything goes’ kimchi and broccoli stalk soup.

Eurest has also gone to great lengths to communicate its CSER ambitions at its sites by running in-person campaigns to get people on board with its goals. Take Wellness Wednesdays and Eco Thursdays as an example, where chefs at workplace restaurants use these marketing initiatives to inform consumers of food, wellbeing and sustainability and nudge them in the right direction.

Over the past year, Eurest has seen a 10% increase in vegan and vegetarian sales, a 63% reduction in beef and lamb recipes, a 54% increase in plant protein sales, and 100% of soups are now plant-based. In addition, it claims zero produce has been air-freighted, and 84% of everything Eurest uses is British grown up from 80% last year. All of its grab-and-go range is packaged in recycled plastic, with 100% of foam and polystyrene being removed.

When considering the food industry is responsible for 35% of greenhouse gas emissions which come from food and drink, those 250,000 meals Eurest is responsible for every day are 250,000 chances to make a positive impact on our planet.

What the judges said

“Some really bold commitments and the eco-labelling is a game-changer” David Nuttall

“I loved reading about Kitchen Club, Eco Thursdays and Wellness Wednesdays. Great tangible examples of success.” Emily Abbam

The shortlist

Elior

Eurest

Sodexo

Past winners

2021 Eurest

2019 CaterED

2018 Cardiff County Council

2017 Vacherin

2016 Bartlett Mitchell

2015 Vacherin

2014 Compass Group UK & Ireland