Trying out tomorrow’s food in Deloitte’s staff restaurant
Consumers have little knowledge of the connection between climate challenges, sustainability and food. A joint project between Coor and several partners in the food sector is looking to change that. Among Coor’s customers, Deloitte was one of the first to get on board.
30 per cent of the world’s carbon footprint comes from food production. To slow climate change, consumers need to be educated and the way we produce and consume food needs to change. To address these challenges, Coor is leading a project called Food (R)evolution together with Nofima, Orkla Foods Norway, HOFF, Foodback and Æra Strategic Innovation. The project, which has received NOK 12 million in funding from the Research Council of Norway, will run until 2024 and Coor has involved a number of customers who are making their staff canteens available for trying out new products and conducting research into consumer behaviour.
“It’s great to be able to contribute to research into sustainable food while at the same time engaging our employees in an important initiative.”
Deloitte, a company that provides auditing, legal, financial advisory, risk analysis and consulting services, is one of these. Coor provides a range of services to Deloitte, including reception, mail and freight handling, cleaning, coffee machines, fruit, and meeting services, in addition to the staff restaurant Coor and Deloitte are jointly developing sustainable FM solution. When Coor offered some of its customers the opportunity to participate in Food (R)evolution, Deloitte immediately agreed and became involved in the project.
“Food (R)evolution fits in well with our climate strategy and is completely in line with our ambition to make a difference,” says Tone Indrebø Næs, Director of Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability at Deloitte.
She believes that Food (R)evolution is an important initiative that serves several purposes.
“It’s great to be able to contribute to research into sustainable food while at the same time engaging our employees in an important initiative.”
Before the pandemic, more than a million lunches were served daily in staff canteens across Norway. Canteens are therefore an ideal arena for food producers to try out new products, get feedback and make adjustments before releasing the products in the market. Through increased knowledge and training of chefs, more sustainable choices will be made in the running of the canteens.
Three challenges from production to store
Food (R)evolution is studying three main challenges from production to store that need to be solved to achieve more sustainable food consumption.
- The development of sustainable products is too inefficient. What can we do to improve development so that more and better sustainable products are made available in the market?
- People want to eat more sustainably but fall back into old patterns when they shop. How can we change this behaviour?
- Knowledge about sustainability issues is too low among chefs and kitchen staff and they therefore do not always make the right How can we increase their knowledge and thereby make staff canteens more sustainable?