Foodservice Cateys 2021: Healthy Eating Champion: Liz Forte, Eurest

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As health and wellness director at Eurest Support Services, part of Compass Group UK, Liz Forte has helped the company to transform its foodservice offer over the past year and show businesses how it can be an asset to the wellbeing of their employees.

Health has always been important to Forte, whose early career included working as an instructor within the Army Cadet Force, and she has been credited for inspiring colleagues with her work to promote healthier options.

She works with experts on nutrition, human performance and mental health and overhauling menus with Eurest’s culinary director Ryan Holmes. This has seen fruit and vegetable content across Eurest menus increase with 170 additional five-a-day portions within each four-week menu cycle, while the number of main meals containing at least two portions of fruit or vegetables has increased by 80%.

Brown rice and wholewheat pasta are now standard on menus, which include five times more wholegrain recipes and over 400g more fibre. Switching out ingredients for healthier alternatives has removed over 20,000 calories – equivalent to 96 sugar donuts – from menus, as well as 996g of fat and 285g of saturated fat.

A key aspect of Forte’s work has been changing the language around how healthier food is presented. She has overseen the rebranding of every aspect of customer contact, including at POS within restaurants and online marketing. Teams have been trained to avoid serving healthy options in competition with ‘unhealthy options’, such as a plant-based burger alongside a meat patty. This had a clear impact on food sales, which rose 40%. Fruit and vegetable sales increased by 21% and salads by 10%.

Forte has also allowed University of Oxford’s LEAP (Livestock, Environment and People) project to run trials in Eurest restaurants since October 2020, using a traffic light system to help consumers make choices about the health, environmental, social and economic impact of meat and dairy products. She has also set up trials with the University of Cambridge’s PACE (Physical Activity Calorie Equivalent) researchers, which label food with how many minutes of physical activity are needed to burn off calories.

The impact of the changes has been clear: Eurest is growing its market share and will emerge from the pandemic a stronger business.

What the judges said

“A true influencer, contributing strategies that can be far-reaching. She is making an impact on staff with great results, embedding healthy options and minds. A great entry.”

Sophie Murray

“A brilliant winner, strategically leading the healthy eating and wellness strategy across the business. And a genuine thought leader on the topic, setting the health agenda through her work with Oxford and Cambridge universities.”

Chris Gamm

“Liz has clearly made a tangible impact on the health and wellbeing of the people the business engages with. Her approach has been strategic and impactful. Through simple and sustainable changes to ingredients and menus across the whole business, she has taken the healthy eating champion award to the next level.”

Charlotte Hutchings

The shortlist

• Andrew Aston, BaxterStorey
• Liz Forte, Eurest
• Luxey Dayanandan, Restaurant Associates
• Melissa Jordan, Sodexo

Past winners

• 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