Providing healthier catering can play an important role in supporting healthy eating, a key step in reducing the risk of heart disease. A few simple changes can make a big difference to the food served at your event function, school, workplace and events; proving healthier catering can be delicious.
Why is it important to serve healthier food?
Caterers are in an ideal role to change the way we eat. By serving healthier options you are benefiting the health of your customers and catering to the growing needs and concerns of Australians about their health. Australians are changing their eating habits to include more fruit and vegetables, more wholegrain breads and cereals, and less saturated fat and salt. They are becoming aware of the value of eating for health and wellbeing, demanding food that is nutritious and enjoyable. People that attend functions, schools, seminars and conferences depend on the caterer to provide them with a variety of food to choose, to enable them to participate at their best. You can implement small changes that can have a big impact and introduce changes essential for maintaining heart health, weight and wellbeing. The Heart Foundation provides a comprehensive array of resources supporting healthier catering.
Catering for community groups
Providing healthier food to your visitors
These resources have been developed to make healthier choices the easier choices at all types of events including BBQs, sporting events, meetings, conferences, seminars and functions. To help you at your next function we recommend reading:
Catering in the workplace
What can you do to serve healthier food in your workplace?
The Heart Foundation is assisting workplaces to move towards a supportive environment that encourages and provides healthy food choices for staff. This will help your staff to maintain a healthier weight, protect them from long term diseases, and in the short-term increasing productivity and morale.
Developing a healthy workplace catering policy or guidelines can help drive culture change, and is the best way to ensure long term commitment to healthier food and drink choices in the workplace. If your workplace does not have a catering policy, the Heart Foundation encourages you to develop one. It will provide a clear guideline for your staff on what constitutes healthy options, and that the organisation is committed to staff health and wellbeing.
Providing healthier food to your employees
These resources have been developed to support your workplace in serving healthier foods including catering for functions and on-site canteens/cafeterias, developing a worplace catering policy, and to help you choose the right caterer to serve healthier food and drinks to your employees and visitors.
Before your next event we recommend reading the following:
To help your workplace develop a healthy catering policy, we recommend you use and modify the Workplace healthy catering policy sample template.
For commercial caterers
Serving healthy food to your customers is a great way to endorse your company and brand. We recommend reading:
We also recommend you visit our Heart Foundation Tick section for information on healthier choices, and our Healthy Kids section to read fun and healthy ideas that can be easily incorporated into your school care program. For Aboriginal communities we recommend reading the Buyer’s Guide for managers of remote Indigenous stores and takeaways.
If you would like one of our healthier catering information packs, please check our table of resources to find those suitable for your needs.