CH&Co launches Wellbeing Being Well ‘Light’ range

The independent catering group, CH&Co, is launching a range of calorie-counted salads and sandwiches under its ‘Wellbeing Being Well’ healthy eating campaign. The new ‘Wellbeing Being Well Light’ (WBBW Light) range of ten sandwiches and five salads will appear in 50 of its 140 restaurants nationwide from today, Monday 5th September. The initiative is part of the CH&Co’s pledge under the Government’s Responsibility Deal to improve public health. Caroline Fry, managing director of CH&Co explained:”We have already signed up to two of the three pledges under the Responsibility Deal: one is to reduce salt to the 2012 target levels by the end of next year and the other is to eliminate artificial trans fats, which we have done already. The introduction of our WBBW Light range is the first step on our journey towards potentially complying with the final Responsibility Deal Pledge asking caterers to introduce calorie labelling on all standard recipes.” The award winning health journalist and consultant nutritionist to CH&Co, Amanda Ursell, has worked closely with CH&Co chefs to ensure that each ‘light’ option is nutritionally balanced and as healthy as possible. She has analysed every single recipe and is currently working on a range of desserts which will be introduced at a later date. She said:”It’s quite a complex process and one of our main concerns has been to ensure that the food tastes great too. Dressings, fillings, breads and protein items have really come under scrutiny and it has been fantastic working so closely with CH&Co chefs to achieve the right balance. “The Responsibility Deal is entirely voluntary and quite challenging for a business like CH&Co, which feeds a potential customer-base of 60,000 people every day across a wide range of catering environments. It’s good that they are getting into the spirit of this and taking their responsibility so seriously because they can make a big impact on people’s diets during the working day.” Caroline Fry concluded: “We are known for giving our chefs creative freedom when producing their daily-changing menus so trying to calorie count everything would be nigh-on impossible. However, we do take seriously the goal of the Government to reduce obesity in this country and will continue to provide our customers with meaningful nutritional information and high quality fresh food.”