Unilever is helping remove billions of calories from restaurant menus

Seductive Nutrition

The summit, organised by The Culinary Institute of America and Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Nutrition took place from 9-11 June and brought together chefs, nutritionists and food industry leaders to discuss the future of food.

Unilever Food Solutions – the foodservice arm of Unilever, which works with chefs globally to create ingredients that help save prep time in their kitchens without compromising on flavour – was the presenting sponsor for Menus of Change for the second year in a row as part of its Seductive Nutrition service.

Developed as a way to encourage chefs and restaurateurs to make small changes to their menus – such as smaller portion sizes and more appealing healthier menu items– the Seductive Nutrition service works towards tackling the global obesity crisis and supports the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan goal of helping more than one billion people improve their health and well-being by 2020.

To date, foodservice professionals across 8,500 locations in North America have taken the Seductive Nutrition pledge, resulting in nearly 3.2 billion pledged calories being removed from menus. The Seductive Nutrition service aims to help chefs remove 10 billion calories from their menus by the end of 2015. Chefs wishing to take the pledge should visit www.ufs.com/TakeThePledge.

Small action, big change

Speaking at the conference, Jonathan Atwood, Vice President, Sustainable Living and Corporate Communications North America said: “It’s so critical that we come together and talk about important issues, that we decide that we’ve had enough on some of these issues and we actually do something about them.

“To us the whole idea of small action, big change and creating a movement for a brighter future, makes us think we’re on the cusp of something big at Unilever. But I can think of no time when Unilever succeeded doing something alone. Every project that we’ve succeeded at we’ve done with other partners. And hopefully we can come back in a year and say we’re continuing to make progress.”

Working together

As part of its work, the Unilever Food Solution’s Seductive Nutrition service also donates to charity. For every pledge made by a chef to create healthier menu options, Unilever will help provide 18 meals ¹ to Feeding America®, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief organisation.

Kim Morgan, vice president of channel marketing, Unilever Food Solutions, says: “Seductive Nutrition gives chefs the power to take action now, removing calories from their menus and helping provide meals to American families who need them.”