More than a chef coat: How Morrison Healthcare is making sustainable changes and challenging the perception of healthcare dining

If you visit some of Morrison Healthcare’s sites, you may notice that chefs aren’t dressed in the traditional white chef coat uniform. Instead, they’re decked out in sleek and stylish uniforms with vibrant accents. And these uniforms are practical too, with a zipper in front and a cool vent bag in the back to prevent overheating.

But the real highlight of these chef coats is their climate impact. During a three-month period, Morrison Healthcare purchased 63,224 of these chef coats and effectively diverted 571,596 water bottles from the landfill.

In addition to being stylish and practical, these coats are also sustainable as they are made from a blend of cotton and recycled polyester from discarded plastic bottles. Each coat is made of eight to 11 recycled water bottles, depending on the size.

“We look at reusable materials and we look at upcycling and we look at things that we once considered waste as opportunity,” said Jeffrey Quasha, senior director of culinary innovation at Morrison Healthcare. “It's only going to change our future, and you know it's just a chef coat, but it's so much more than a chef coat.”

And beyond these coats' opportunity to reduce Morrison’s climate impact, Quasha hopes they also work to challenge the perception of healthcare dining.

“Part of changing the perception of healthcare dining is also changing the uniform. When you change the uniform, you put people in something that they love,” he said. “It deinstitutionalizes the whole healthcare perception look.”  

Challenging manufacturers to provide more sustainable products

Over the past three years, Morrison Healthcare has been working with its manufacturing partners on sourcing more sustainable products. Quasha said this was a major focus for the foodservice company when its uniform provider, ChefWorks approached the company with some ideas. The two considered ways that they could make an impact using strategies like upcycling and reuse.

“What could the impact be if we just took an item that we use every single day like our chef coats, our aprons, our chef pans and we were able to incorporate more sustainable best practices?” said Quasha.

From there ChefWorks and Morrison collaborated on an initiative that turned discarded plastic bottles into stylish and functional uniforms.

The foodservice provider believes these coats can help to invest in retention and employee success.

The foodservice company launched the sustainable chef coat last November at CHRISTUS Health System in Texas, shifting from their old uniforms to the new sustainable coats. Then, in December, the company opened up 30 hospitals across three states, where the new chef coats piloted. Throughout the year, other operations tried out the new coats as did new hospital systems. And there are plans in the works to expand the initiative as well. So far, the coats have already begun to make appearances in Morrisons retail and patient services spaces.

“As uniforms get reordered, then this is our default is to move to the sustainable product,” said Quasha.

And as the uniform expands, Morrison has begun to consider the impact of this effort on a global scale.

“These are the moves that we have to make. It's not only the right thing for our company, but it's also the right thing for the planet,” said Quasha.

The cost of sustainability is often a challenge that presents barriers for foodservice operations, but Quasha said cost was not a major challenge for this project and in fact, there was a minimal impact on the company’s costs.

And, he believes the benefits of these new uniforms will work as an investment in employee success.

“But also think about the cost of recruiting, and retaining, and training new employees and wanting to make sure that that our chefs are set up for success. And I think this was the right move and it's the right message,” he said.

Investing in people and how uniforms can shift the perception of healthcare dining

Morrison is working on ways to offer unique coats in honor of special events or causes.

Another aspect that is at the center of this initiative is an effort to modernize the chef’s look. Gone are the days of the traditional, itchy chef coat without much room for personalization. Instead, these new uniforms are modern and stylish, and the company has a courier style chef pants offering that moves away from the baggy chef pants of the past.

“I think it's just a different perception, like you don't have to wear the white hat, the white coat, the neckerchief and the houndstooth or the black pants in order to be a chef,” said Quasha.

And feedback from Morrison chefs has been very positive, with the employees finding the uniforms comfortable.

“So, it has all of the classic combinations of what you would want to see from a chef coat, but our chefs are also loving the fact that they can have short sleeves versus long sleeves,” said Quasha.

Some teams have even had the idea to personalize the coats, offering certain colors based on a theme, for instance a pink chef coat in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

And Morrison sees this investment in sustainability as an investment in people, as more employees consider social causes when entering the workforce.

According to a 2024 Deloitte study, 54% of Gen Z individuals said that they and their colleagues are putting pressure on their employers to take action on climate change.

“As our industry continues to grow, not only attracting, but retaining young culinarians and then the staff that we have,” said Quasha. “And when you start thinking about, you know, quality of life, social impact and being aware, people are more cognitive of the companies that they are working for.”

Igniting conversations and social change

Quasha said that it can also serve as a conversation starter for spreading awareness about the climate crisis.

“It's making a social impact statement and from a corporate citizen standpoint, I feel like we're moving in the right direction and we're engaging the younger generations,” he said. “And it's just a starting point, you know, like I said, we want to continue to move.”

This initiative makes noise in other avenues of sustainability that aren’t typically focused on, as foodservice operations traditionally prioritize Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

“But some of the things that we say, ‘oh, like Scope one, Scope two, we can't really control that,’” said Quasha. “Well, but we can, because we can work with ChefWorks and do more sustainable practices in the product.”

And initiatives like this have sparked conversations on a higher level, as Morrison works with its parent company Compass Group on ways to make global climate impacts. Quasha actually leads the Compass Global Sustainability team. And his initiative has brought forth conversations about how to create more change.  

Moving forward, Morrison plans to continue these conversations with manufacturers and find more innovative ways to reduce the company’s climate impact.

“Sometimes small moves like, you know, just changing a chef coat, has big global impacts and I think, that to me, is game changing,” said Quasha.