Amadeus Glorious Magazine Issue 05

RESPONSIBLE CATERING REDUCING SUGAR
Caterers
WITH A CONSCIENCE
•
Kevin Watson, Managing Director of Amadeus, explains how the caterer aims
to halve the amount of sugar in its foodservice operation by 2020.
Public Health England have recently
challenged businesses to cut sugar by 20%
by 2020.This announcement was made
following a report from the government
body that found children are consuming
three times more sugar every day than they
should, leading to weight gain and obesity.
Currently, one in five children are overweight
or obese when they start primary school and
by the time they start secondary school that
rises to one in three.
It’s clear that not only manufacturers, high
street retailers and school meal providers,
but also commercial foodservice caterers
like ourselves, need to play a part in tackling
the growing health crisis – not only when it
comes to children, but consumers at large.
That’s why Amadeus has pledged to reduce
the amount of sugar in our foodservice
operation not by 20%, but by 50%, by 2020.
This will equate to removing seven tonnes of
sugar, or 30 million calories, from our food
chain in the next three years.
How will we do this? In a range of different
ways – from revising our procurement
policies to looking at our product offering
across our diverse catering portfolio which
includes catering for four million visitors
a year as part of the NEC Group, over 30
external venues and at hundreds of events
every year.
As of June this year, we began a process of
revising all of our menus across the different
venues we cater for, looking at ways in which
sugar could be reduced or substituted in
meals without compromising on flavour. So
for example, we will be using natural sugars
like honey and dried fruit instead of artificial
sugars, but also reducing natural sugars
where we can.
Moving forward, all new menus and
recipes will be devised by our chef teams
to strict sugar reduction guidelines. Some
of the recent catering concepts we’ve
launched such as our Pure brand, can not
only be considered low sugar, but focus
on ‘super foods’ that support the body’s
ability to function at its optimum capacity.
The menu features foods with slow release
energy, which are high in omega 3 and low
16 GLORIOUS