Sodexo partners with Chef Brooke Williamson to bring seasonal eats and flavorful ingredients to Modern Recipe brandSodexo partners with Chef Brooke Williamson to bring seasonal eats and flavorful ingredients to Modern Recipe brand

A highlight for most employees’ workday is lunch and the team at Modern Recipe, Sodexo’s corporate dining brand, know that a good, healthy meal can turn someone’s day around.

To that end, the company partnered with restaurateur and Top Chef winner Brooke Williamson to bring flavorful and nutritionally sound recipes to Modern Recipe menus. The decision to partner with Williamson was easy, says Vice President for Brand Management at Sodexo Lauren Smith, since she also shares a love of using seasonal ingredients that are beneficial for the body. 

“Her philosophy is very much around seasonality, fresh, seasonal, plant-forward dishes, and that is just so aligned to our strategy in terms of the health and well being menu proposition,” she adds. 

Since the partnership began in 2023, the two have worked together to create recipes that are intended to provide diners with nutrition-heavy options to fuel their workday and beyond. 

Director of Culinary Development for Sodexo Rosalyn Darling and her team work closely with Williamson to develop the recipes, which are offered seasonally. 

The dishes center around five flavor boosting ingredients: lemon, apricots, tahini, cashews and hot peppers. 

Some of the ingredients’ applications are straightforward, like using lemon to brighten a pesto sauce, while others are used in a less obvious manner. For example, Darling and her team have used apricots to thicken sauces, add texture and subtle sweetness to salads, and more. 

Cashews are another one of the ingredients that the team likes to get creative with. 

For example, they recently introduced a Zen Chia Citrus Parfait that is topped with ginger candied cashews that add a flavorful, crunchy twist to the dish. 

“Cashews are great on their own, but they're so versatile,” says Darling. “You can candy them in different ways. You can spice them.”

Whichever way they’re used, the goal is to make sure that the ingredients offer guests a nutritional benefit, says Darling. “They’re not just delicious, but also nutritionally packed,” she adds. “We don't do empty calories.”

Once the dishes are developed, the Modern Recipe team makes a push to market them effectively.

“We'll have beautiful photography that really showcases the dish at all of our stations, and I think that just is really helping our guests, our consumers, adopt those healthier lifestyle choices, because everything looks vibrant and delicious,” says Smith. 

Williamson also appears in video reels that the team shows in the cafeteria to further promote the recipes. 

Overall, feedback on the dishes and partnership has been positive, with many guests requesting for some of their favorite dishes to make a comeback each season. 

“There was an autumn squash salmon bowl that we launched last fall, and it did so well that people are requesting it back,” says Darling.

Knowing that diners are specifically requesting dishes is one of the best compliments a chef can receive, Darling says, and she looks forward to continuing to offer diners new and creative options to get excited about. 

“I really want our diners to feel cared for,” says Darling. “We're not just feeding them calories, we're nourishing them with a culinary experience. Because, you know, anybody at the office, lunch is probably one of the things they look forward to the most during the day, right? So let's deliver a really nourishing, comforting, delicious, nutritious experience where they can go back to their desks and feel energized, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally.”