Our relationship with Porsche has flourished over the years. In the past year alone, we’ve launched a sustainability strategy that includes tackling food waste, increasing the number of plant-based menus, and implementing engaging, industry-leading food experiences.
Porsche HQ in Reading is home to around 280 employees, and the restaurant is a vibrant hub where meetings take place alongside employees relaxing and refuelling. Porsche has a pleasant and attractive environment where high-quality service is expected, and Eurest didn’t disappoint, with 76% of employees making the most of company catering by regularly dining in the staff restaurant. Porsche was keen to entice employees back into the office, so we collaborated with them to help attract the workforce to return with a high-quality, consistent food and beverage offering.
This long-established partnership with the employee restaurant in Reading, which started in 2015, is continually evolving. In 2021 we worked together to redesign the restaurant, moving away from the traditional straight counter and introducing a new concept with a style of dining that truly puts the customer at the heart of the offer. The central serving area ensures that employees can move around the counter with ease.
Customers can make informed meal choices from a self-serve salad bar, and a sandwich bar, to all their favourite traditional main meals. Meat-free Mondays are now a regular part of the menu, encouraging positive dietary choices and helping to reduce Porsche’s carbon footprint. Another winner is our range of cakes and pastries which are produced on-site. Simple changes to crockery have taken the food to the next level and helped to display the seasonal dishes to their best effect. Our close partnership with Porsche has enabled us to ensure that our company catering adds synergy to their health and sustainability strategy.
We’re proud that our team at Porsche’s head office in Reading won a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Award, an achievement that reflects the commitment to sustainability and well-being across our catering company. Led by Mark Whelan, the small but mighty team of nine delivered big results.
Working with Porsche, we aligned our actions to their sustainability ambitions alongside our own Climate and Social Promises. From removing single-use plastics and transitioning the kitchen to sustainable energy, to reducing cooking oil use and cutting carbon emissions by over 60 tonnes in a year, our catering company has driven change across every part of this operation.
We’ve supported Porsche’s employee engagement efforts with interactive events, including sustainability weeks and wellbeing campaigns. By using digital communications, we keep people informed while reducing paper waste. We’re also proud to support charities that prioritise wellbeing. For every coffee purchased, 5p goes to Mental Health UK.
This award is a testament to our team's dedication and purpose-driven mindset. Together with Porsche, we’re proving that company catering can be a powerful force for positive change.
At Eurest, we believe that small, simple actions – such as eating less meat and more plants – can go a long way. Over the past year, we’ve evolved our food offer to include more plant-based dishes throughout the week, with 58% of our menu now plant-based, up from 30% in 2019.
We’ve already reformulated our top 12 meat dishes by replacing 40% of the meat with beans, pulses and vegetables, saving CO2 while improving the health profile of each meal. Working with the Porsche Environmental team, we’ve also removed all disposables from the site.
Our partnerships never stand still, and we’re always looking for new ways to drive service and innovation. We’re proud to partner with Foodsteps, a UK-based start-up that helps businesses and consumers to understand the environmental impact of their food. Their impact assessments cover all stages of the process of producing and consuming food. This means they cover every step along the way, from farming, to packaging, transportation, cooking and food waste.
Our company uses a three-tiered approach to help reduce food waste in catering, which is just 0.8% in contrast to the UK foodservice industry average of 18%. First, prevention: our daily-updated menu management software and dashboard help us track and cut waste at every stage. Second, reuse and recycle: we’ve created the Plenty range to make use of root-to-tip ingredients, introduced ‘Free Cake Thursdays’ to avoid leftover baked goods going stale, and offer ‘grounds to grow’ – used coffee grounds paired with recipe cards for employees to take home. We’re also proud to support Porsche’s on-site herb garden, enabling us to use freshly picked herbs with zero waste.
And it didn’t stop there. We launched Plantilicious, an ambitious, plant-forward concept, and restructured menu layouts to place veggie dishes first at the counter and on printed menus. These efforts aren’t just about offering more sustainable options but about changing perceptions. By giving consumers transparency and the right tools, our catering company empowers them to make better choices for the planet and their health.
It’s a pleasure to commend Maddie Dowdy, our exceptional pastry chef at the Porsche Experience Centre. She’s been recognised with a Rising Star award for her incredible talent and passion for creative, sustainable baking. Since joining in 2022, Maddie has transformed our pastry offer with plant-based desserts and zero-waste recipes that have inspired menus across our 600 sites.
A graduate of the prestigious Marcus Wareing Forward Programme, Maddie’s artistry has featured on TV and at Wimbledon, where her bespoke afternoon tea stunned guests. Her ability to blend innovation and branding shines through across Eurest and the Porsche Experience Centre. Whether serving healthy shots that match the Porsche Paint or crafting remarkable Porsche 911-shaped chocolate cakes, she leads by example every time.
Andrew Finn, Porsche’s Account Director at Eurest, said: “Maddie embodies exactly what we want for teams that work in our client sites. The Porsche ethos is: ‘There’s a way to do something – and there’s a Porsche way to do it.’ Maddie’s work reflects that standard, consistently elevating the team and client experience. If you could bottle her energy and enthusiasm, the world would be a better place.”
A spokesperson at Porsche Reading commented:
“Our offering at Porsche is outstanding. The attention to detail, the variety of offerings and the unique concepts that emerge from Eurest really do excite the staff at our headquarters. Comparing the pre-2015 offering and uptake to now, the figures and customer feedback really do speak for themselves. We're happy to have such a reliable provider like Eurest, who truly understands us and where we want to take the customer experience in the future. Eurest also provides our front-of-house food at the Porsche Experience Centre Silverstone, which is centred on luxury and high-end for our retail customers.
Both locations are truly linked, with our visitors and employees enjoying a comparable luxury experience every day in our restaurant and coffee bar. Our building's focal point is the cuisine, which keeps our employees coming back every day. I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for our joint venture.”
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