How foodservice operators are keeping up with the demand for transparency

Unable to find a seasoning mix made without traces of salt, gluten or dairy, the dining services chefs at Rice University made their own.

Owl Spice, named for the Houston university’s mascot, is manufactured exclusively for the school per chef Johnny Curet’s recipe.

“We pay attention to every label we have,” says Curet, dining services director. “Why [would there be] dairy in the spice blend?”

Carefully monitoring labels has become a steady practice for foodservice directors. Consumers’ desire to know what’s in the food they are eating is more than just a fad: It has become a movement. According to research firm Technomic, 40 percent of consumers are more concerned about what’s in their food and where it is from than they were two years ago, and 82 percent of operators agree that clean labels will have a great or moderate influence on purchasing decisions in the future.

For operators who already label food allergens, the next steps in maintaining transparency are local sourcing, cooking from scratch, working closely with suppliers and even, in the case of Rice, developing their own products. Students there already are asking for more information from foodservice, holding elections for “food reps” in their individual residential halls. These ambassadors interact with chefs and foodservice staff on culinary offerings, touring the kitchens to see what’s being stored and purchased.

Related:Clean label takeaways

“Different student groups want to know where the food comes from, and we can tell them exactly where,” Curet says.

But it’s not just millennials who are concerned about the source of food or its quality. The rising tide of public interest in clean food is not expected to subside anytime soon, industry observers and foodservice directors say.

Find partners who share your mission

“One of the best things a foodservice director can do is understand what food labels tell you and don’t tell you,” says Stacia Clinton, national program director for Healthy Food in Health Care, which assists hospitals in building a healthy food system.

“We try to give [operators] guidance: what to look for, what questions to ask your suppliers. They don’t know your needs if you don’t ask for it.”

Kurt Roessler, director of food and nutrition at Huggins Hospital in Wolfeboro, N.H., previously worked in restaurants that actively pursued foods free of antibiotics, preservatives and other labels, experience that has served him well in his current position. After a nearly two-year effort to bring in local and affordable foods, Roessler is sourcing up to 85 percent antibiotic-free meat. Much of the produce Huggins uses is grown on local farms using environmentally friendly and sustainable farming practices, and the hospital also participated in a pilot program to provide sustainable seafood from New Hampshire fisheries.

“We had to look at how to bring [clean labels] in and still remain on budget,” Roessler says. “We stopped buying a lot of processed foods, and luckily we’ve been able to stay on budget and bring local, sustainable product in.”

When the president of three St. Vincent hospitals in the Jacksonville, Fla., area challenged Director of Food and Nutrition Glenn Hixson to source as much organic and local produce as possible to meet customer demand for clean labels, the operator rose to the challenge.

A national supplier for TouchPoint Support Services, the foodservice contractor for the St. Vincent hospitals, introduced Hixson and his chef to a local source for produce and proteins with clean labels. A Jacksonville supplier and a network of independent farmers now provide local produce to the hospitals. Hogs are raised without antibiotics, and chickens and turkeys are free-range.

“It’s more expensive and you pay a premium when buying local, but I don’t think there is a way around it,” Hixson says. “The trade off is the quality and flavor that comes right from the field.”

Through Compass Group’s Imperfectly Delicious program, TouchPoint also is able to purchase “ugly” produce at a discount. “We made a commitment to farmers to use the product they normally leave in the field or throw away or compost,” said Jonathan Smith, system executive chef at the St. Vincent hospitals. “If it’s fresh and ripe and still has the same flavor, we’ll use it.”

A new process

“We know from our research that consumers are interested in transparency,” says Charlie Arnot, CEO of the nonprofit research organization Center for Food Integrity. “You can’t just market on price or taste or convenience. Now social responsibility, animal care and ingredients are playing a greater role.”

Delivering cleaner options isn’t just about considering the cost. Labor is a factor as well, operators say. “It takes time to make changes,” says Kyleen Harris, director of food and nutrition services for Abilene Public Schools.

“There can be a lot of resistance when it comes to food costs and product availability,” she says.

To provide gluten-free meals at the request of a handful of students in the small Abilene, Texas, district, Harris found a company that provides gluten-free boxed lunches, with items individually wrapped to avoid contamination—including fruits and vegetables. “It was not cheap, but it was safe,” she says.

Buying fewer processed foods offsets the cost of buying more whole, clean-labeled foods, says Smith. “We don’t buy chicken bases, for example. We make our own stock and automatically it’s going to be low in sodium and gluten-free,” Smith says. “We don’t buy things like barbecue or teriyaki sauce. If you want it, you have to make it.”

Hixson and Smith both say they have taken chefs and hospital administrators out to the farms for an education on sustainable farming to better understand where the food is coming from—and to help make the case for sourcing clean labels.

“We were out there digging potatoes, cutting cabbage and picking kale,” Hixson says. “I don’t think we can preach to our associates and patients about getting healthy and staying healthy unless we are feeding them healthy.”