Offering snack vegetables at work is an effective way to encourage vegetable consumption. Studies from Wageningen UR, in collaboration with Greenco, Albron, FMHaaglanden, Bayer/Nunhems and the Groenten & Fruit Huis, show this. Foodservice organisation Albron is therefore going to start structurally offering snack vegetables in company restaurants and conference rooms.
Anticipate need for health
Consumers can easily and quickly eat snack vegetables during meetings, compared to fruit which often has to be peeled or cut and which gives waste. Consumers often choose an unhealthy snack, such as biscuits or fried snacks. Besides being enticing and easy, they are also often offered. New, healthy snack vegetable concepts anticipate the need for health and can easily fit into the catering supply.
Project: more fruits and vegetables for everyone
In the PPS project ‘More fruits and vegetables for everyone,’ Wageningen UR examined the consumption of snack vegetables in the workplace. For two weeks foodservice organisation Albron offered the employees of FMHaaglanden snack vegetables at meetings. For six weeks they did the same in 12 company restaurants throughout the country. Victor Immink from Wageningen UR: “The results are promising. The consumption of snack vegetables during meetings was on average 74 grammes per person per meeting. This is 37 per cent of the daily recommended intake of vegetables. For a quarter of all meetings this was even more than 100 grammes per person.”
Participants eat on average 30% of the recommended daily amount of vegetables during a meeting (if offered)
Michel du Crocq, concept manager for Albron: “The positive outcome of this study has confirmed for us that offering snack vegetables at meetings and during lunch in our company restaurants actually contributes to raising vegetable consumption. We will therefore add snack vegetables to our conference service and to the assortment on offer in more than 700 company restaurants Albron is currently in charge of.”