5 things: Nudging tactics help promote healthful workplace dining for Eurest

In this edition of 5 Things, Food Management highlights five things you may have missed recently about developments affecting onsite dining.

Here’s your list for today:

 1.    Nudging tactics help promote healthful workplace dining for Eurest

With individuals spending an average of 90,000 hours of their adult lives at work, businesses have a unique opportunity to utilize the workplace as a catalyst for positive change, and psychotherapist Khody Damestani, who has advised workplace caterer Eurest in the UK, believes that the key lies in ‘nudging’, a philosophy backed by increasing amounts of academic research. Nudging methods exercised by Eurest UK include cognitive nudging, which uses evaluative information such as color-coded eco-labels that rate products based on their environmental impact to influence habits; affective or emotional nudging, which aims to change people’s feelings by using clever techniques like playful language—calling a plant-based menu "Plantilicious" for example—to modify their environment; behavioural nudges that make it effortless for people to make healthier decisions, such as placing the more nutritious options at the front and center of counters; and default nudging, which removes effort from decision-making altogether, such as making a plant-based option the default or offering only healthy choices.

Related:5 things: District partners with local deli to bring African and Mediterranean choices to school meals

Read more: Four types of nudges that can boost employee health and wellbeing

 2.    Texas expands school breakfast funding

The Texas Legislature has approved a 2024-25 biennium budget that includes $3.3 million per year to cover the cost of school breakfasts for students eligible for reduced price meals. According to the No Kid Hungry Texas organization, the funding will impact nearly 70,000 more students eating school breakfast each day, projected to equal 11 million more breakfasts for Texas children.

Read more: Texas state budget approval will provide 70,000 more kids with no-cost breakfasts

 3.    Vegan restaurant brings its fare to Major League ballpark

The Kitchen by Cooking With Que is bringing some plant-based options to Comerica Park, home of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers as the Detroit-based restaurant is now serving a slew of vegan items at the Tigers’ home games for the month of July. The include “The 313,” a Beyond sausage topped with kale, tomato, vegan mayo and mustard on a pretzel bun, as well as other offerings such as The Kitchen’s popular vegan mac n cheez, totchos and Caribbean jerk jackfruit bowls or wraps.

Read more: The Kitchen by Cooking with Que brings much-needed vegan eats to Comerica Park

Related:5 tech things: AI making inroads across the foodservice industry

 4.    Student artists spruce up cafeteria wall with healthy food message

The cafeteria at South Pasadena High School in California got a makeover this summer with help from some student artists who painted the wall of the cafeteria’s Tiger Express with fresh fruits and vegetables to inspire healthy food choices. The improved express area will offer plant-based options such as fresh salads, fruit and yogurt parfaits and veggie wraps while the dining area of the main cafeteria also will debut a new look and new offerings, come this fall, with a scratch-made approach to menu selections plus streamlined service areas, updated signage, and colorful graphics.

Read more: South Pasadena High School Cafeteria Spruced Up

 5.    Aramark named Disability Inclusion Best Place to Work   

Aramark has earned a score of 100 on the Disability Equality Index, a joint initiative of the American Association of People with Disabilities and Disability:IN. With this top-score, the company is recognized as a "Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion" for the seventh consecutive year.

Read more: Aramark Recognized as a “Best Place To Work for Disability Inclusion,” Earns Top-Score on the Disability Equality Index® for Seventh Consecutive Year

Bonus: FM announces 2023 Best Concept Award winners

Contact Mike Buzalka at [email protected]