Sodexo at The Scottish Government wins Healthier Living Award

The Sodexo catering team for The Scottish Government has picked up the Healthier Living Award at this year’s CIS Excellence Awards.

This award was given in recognition of the initiatives Sodexo at The Scottish Government has implemented to provide healthy menu plans and its broader work to promote healthy lifestyles to employees and its wider community.

Austen Wright, account manager explains the approach: “We’ve been working hard towards adopting a healthier approach over a number of years, so it is great to have this hard work recognised.

In 2013 the four largest sites in the group St Andrews House, Victoria Quay, Saughton House, and Atlantic Quay attained the Healthyliving Award Plus. This was in recognition of work we did to provide more nutritious and balanced menu options and promote healthier eating.

Joe Aitken, business manager said: “We cater for a large number of customers from a wide range of backgrounds with various income levels, so it has been important that we strive to reduce health inequalities by offering healthy and nutritious food, accessible at all price points.

We have encouraged healthier eating at all times through a range of measures including staff awareness events, poster campaigns and healthy promotions such as ‘Free Fruit Friday’.”

The CIS Award also recognised the team’s continued efforts to promote healthy lifestyles among its local community. Sodexo has a long running partnership with The Outward Bound Trust, an educational charity which aims to help young people realise their potential by learning in the wild.

Sodexo partners with the charity to offer a health and wellbeing challenge to young people in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The initiatives undertaken by Sodexo at the Scottish Government are underpinned by Healthwise, Sodexo’s nutrition, well-being and lifestyle approach. Healthwise is a commitment to promoting healthy living amongst Sodexo’s employees, clients and customers and is very much aligned to the Scottish Government’s route map to address rising obesity levels.