Foodservice Cateys 2022: Healthy Eating Champion – Rees Bramwell, Eurest

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Rees Bramwell has had a significant impact on Eurest, aligning his passion for sustainability with Eurest’s strategic goal to be net zero by 2030. This has been typified by a campaign to reduce food waste and a research project with the University of Oxford to develop new sustainability food labelling and his studying for an MSc in sustainability at Cranfield University.

Bramwell, recently promoted to senior nutritionist and sustainability lead for Eurest, has been responsible for a complete reformulation of the food offer, including an increase in plant-based options, such as the Plantilicious range, and a campaign to signpost healthier options in the Good Stuff range. There has been a 30% increase in Good Stuff dishes, which meet the criteria of being under 600kcal and are not high in fats, saturates, sugar or salt and marketed for being two of your five a day. At Eurest’s Amazon contract across six sites and 20,000 associates, 27.5% of hot breakfast sales are Good Stuff, resulting in a saving of 264,000 calories and 3,520g in saturated fat versus previous six-item hot breakfasts.

In the past year he has also designed an e-learning health, wellbeing and sustainability module, assigned to 1,661 people with a completion rate so far of 93.91%.

Bramwell headed up a project with the University of Oxford’s Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) team to develop eco-labelling. More than 10,000 recipes were analysed, which were scored on greenhouse gas emissions, water scarcity, water pollution and biodiversity loss. Dishes were then labelled A-E, with A having the lowest environmental impact. Eurest became the first contract caterer to launch eco-labelling, which is now in place across five sites. The results will be published in academic journals – putting global good ahead of corporate gain.

Another project led to redesigned menus, distributed to 750 food outlets after Bramwell worked with app developer Traact to link exercise with menus, targeting sites with a high physical activity workforce.

Darren Rogers, head of health and wellbeing at Eurest’s client Bentley Motors, says: “Rees has been a great addition to our health and wellbeing programme. He has delivered highly informative and current knowledge-based workshops remotely via Teams and on-site to help our Bentley colleagues make small changes to their nutritional habits, which in return make huge differences to them long term.

Bramwell isn’t just content with commercial success, managing Eurest’s CSR partnership with Mental Health UK, including a campaign that raised £21,000 across Eurest and 14forty.

What the judges said

“For one person to lead a sea-change in the UK’s biggest caterer is extremely impressive. The reach of his innovative and thorough initiatives will lead others across the sector.” Chris Stern

“Rees is a clear winner. His journey to date is hugely impressive and it is great to see him making such a magnificent impact.” Sarah Prentice

The shortlist

Christine Bailey, Thomas Franks

Rees Bramwell, Eurest

Past winners

2021 Liz Forte, Eurest

2019 Sophie Murray, Sunrise Senior Living

2018 Amy Roberts, Holroyd Howe

2017 Sophie Murray, Sunrise Senior Living

2016 Amanda Ursell and Judy Roberts, Charlton House

2015 Kimberley Aplin, Sodexo

2014 Kate Martin, Brookwood Partnership

2013 Caroline Fry, CH&Co