Plant-Based Meals for Climate Friendly Catering

Catering teams are invited to explore the challenge and opportunity of improving plant-based catering across the public-sector in an online event hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Vegetarianism and Veganism.

Recent years have seen increased attention to the impact of food choices on the climate. The National Food Strategy (NFS), an independent review looking into food policy in England, hit the headlines last year with its recommendation of cutting meat consumption 30% by 2050.

The NFS highlighted the role of public sector catering as an important policy lever to enable wider behaviour change, something the UK Committee on Climate Change has also mentioned in its own recommendations to Government.

But commitments to increase plant-based provision and procurement in the public sector were absent from the government’s own strategy published in June. An initiative to improve plant-based catering in schools, which had been briefed to the press in the week leading up to its publication, was also conspicuously absent.

However, the announcement did come alongside a long-awaited consultation into Public Sector Food and Catering Policy. With this review into public sector procurement, and further debates on food policy expected this year, there is still an opportunity to make changes and support caterers in offering more vegan and vegetarian options.

This is a topic that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Vegetarianism and Veganism will be taking up in an online event on 13 July. We’ll be asking questions such as:
• How do we familiarise the public with more healthy and sustainable meals?
• What legislative changes are needed to underpin more plant-based options?
• What challenges are caterers faced with when introducing plant-based menu options?
• How does the push for more plant-based options fit with other considerations around nutrition and sustainability?

Public sector employees are invited to attend the event and ask questions to our panel of speakers, including Anna Taylor, CEO of The Food Foundation, Phil Rees-Jones, Chair of TUCO, and representatives from Oxfordshire County Council, who passed an ambitious motion to provide plant-based meals during council-catered events and improving plant-based catering in their schools.

The VegAPPG is a cross party group of MPs, sponsored by The Vegan Society and V for Life, which provides a forum for discussing issues around vegetarianism and veganism.

Event url: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/climate-friendly-catering-tickets-371166317447