‘We have a duty to nudge the nation’: Morag Freathy spills the beans on what drives Eurest in today’s market

From defining our brand purpose to the introduction of carbon labelling, a lot has happened since the Managing Director of Business and Industry of our parent group Compass Group UK & Ireland, Morag Freathy, joined the team in 2017.

In a recent interview with The Caterer, Morag dished out how a focus on food, sustainability and wellbeing has led to growth and a culture to be proud of – scroll down to see what she said.

When I came back to Eurest in 2017 and took on the role of managing director, we were losing sight of what our purpose was from a food
standpoint. Our purpose that we're anchored on now is to make people just that little bit happier in the workplace every day.

We're also focused on the fact that food is not just about fuel. We know from our Global Eating at Work survey that where there's an F&B facility in the workplace, it's seen as the number two benefit after flexible working.

I have a strapline: we have a duty to nudge the nation. This means we can help people over time make the right choices for the planet and for future generations. Fifty-three per cent of our menu is plant-based, we've reduced the meat in our top 12 meals by 40% and, just in the last year, we've taken 600,000kg of CO2 out of our emissions.

We're seeing 10% net growth every year and we won £23m of new business last year. The growth is also good for the team because it creates careers, which is super-important.

We've done quite well for a few years in a row. The business and industry sector of Compass has grown substantially in the last year – by 10% – and I anticipate double-digit percentage growth in the financial year ahead. We've won a couple of large clients this year – Harwell Science and Innovation Campus and the Westworks, so I expect to continue to grow further.

It is so important to nudge people's behaviour. You can't tell consumers they can't have certain things, rather you've got to try and get them to choose the right things.

The other bit of science that comes with it is the different nudging techniques. If you work hard at making your plant-forward food look beautiful on the counters, people are drawn to it. If you put your plant-forward food at the front of the counter, it'll be the first thing customers see and they're more likely to choose it.

Our chefs and teams have been surprised at the fact that some dishes were LEAP labelled as red, so there was an education piece there. We also had meetings where we talked about carbon emissions. There is a lot of focus on aviation, but the reality is 10% of carbon emissions are created by global food waste and only 2% are created by aviation.

Sharing some of those statistics made the chefs think: 'OK, I need to sort food waste and we need to move away from the red LEAP labelling.' People began to feel they had a duty not to have red labels on their menus, so they started to nudge towards ambers and yellows.

What I've learned in my time is that people are motivated by different purposes, duties and benefits. Some people in our team will reduce food waste to save costs for clients and for the business, but some see it as our duty to reduce carbon emissions for the planet and for future generations, and that's a real motivator.

People who want healthy food will only use your facility if they get what they want. Employees who go to the gym in the morning and then come into work are going to want something that complements the exercise they've just done, so that's important to take on board. Some of our clients will also subsidise healthy options; one, JLR, is subsiding our ‘Good Stuff' range to support healthy eating among its staff. As a result, we have seen up to 40% increase in uptake of healthy meals.

There are some long-standing, respected businesses out there that we're all familiar with and we compete with each other. There are a few new start-ups too, but they tend to be a little bit more niche, but we've all got our part to play. We're understanding from employers that F&B plays a fundamental part in attracting and retaining employees, more so than ever, so we're seeing more clients wanting to open up new facilities where they didn't have them before, or they are investing in facilities because they want to have different uses out of the F&B space, so that's making it quite a busy market.

We have made a commitment on scopes one, two and three. It is unusual for businesses in our industry to commit to scope three because that is a huge percentage of our total carbon emissions. The Foodbuy team work very closely with our suppliers to make sure they're on the same journey. We've done some great work on scope one and two, so most of our fleet is electric and over 80% of the food we buy is produced in the UK.

We've reduced our food waste 19% year-on-year. We know that because we measure it on a daily and weekly basis, but there's always more we can do. We are aiming to reduce food waste by a further 30% in the next 18 months and that involves understanding what products we're wasting and planning accordingly.