These conversations have reignited the need for healthful eating because it is one of the most important ways to improve our overall health and well-being.

According to Datassential’s COVID-19 Health at Home report, 78% of consumers agree that diet has a major impact on how your body fights/protects against illness, and 44% of consumers say they have been eating healthier in response to COVID-19.

The foundation to any healthful eating pattern is consuming an ample amount of plants, specifically fruits, and vegetables. Restaurants have a unique and important opportunity to provide consumers with a variety of plants to support healthful eating and their overall wellness.

Restaurants have been instrumental in exposing people to fruits and vegetables and providing consumers with a delightful, delicious plant-forward experience,” says Wendy Reinhardt Kapsak, president and CEO of the Produce for Better Health Foundation. “Restaurants are often the first exposure, or point of entry, to trying — continuing to try — new fruit and vegetable consumption behaviors,” says Reinhardt Kapsak.

Popular fast-casual chain restaurants Roti Modern Mediterranean, Panera Bread, Noodles and Company, and Chipotle Mexican Grill have put fruits and vegetables at the core of their healthful menu development.

• The majority of Roti’s entrée toppings are colorful nutrient-dense vegetables such as red cabbage slaw, cucumber, and tomato, and fresh seasonal vegetables roasted in-house.
• Panera Bread added plant-based grain bowls with a variety of produce such as corn, tomatoes, avocado, arugula, and cucumbers. These new bowls are a warm complement to Panera’s produce-centric salad menu that features strawberries, edamame, and blueberries.
• Noodle’s and Co. introduced “Zoodles,” zucchini cut into noodle shape, that boost its entrée’s vegetable quotient.
• Chipotle has a long history of offering vegetarian entrées with guacamole and introduced plant-forward lifestyle entrées that introduced supergreens to its menu. According to Chipotle’s VP of Marketing Stephanie Perdue, “Chipotle has the opportunity to bring more vegetables to the center of the plate. Chipotle customers are looking for simple, plant-based food now more than ever, especially as people look for convenient ways to eat healthier at home,” she says.

As consumers gain more exposure to fruits and vegetables from popular fast-casual chain restaurants, they will look to all types of restaurants to offer and innovate with more fruits and vegetables. Here are a few ways to incorporate fruits and vegetables into the menu.

• Let the vegetable be a flavor carrier: Kale, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts rose to popularity because they were paired with a variety of unique, familiar, and slightly indulgent flavors such as parmesan, balsamic, curry, and bacon.
• Allow fruits to be the star flavor: The natural, vibrant flavors of fruit can enhance any part of the menu. Fruit salsas made from mango, pineapple, peaches, and watermelon can top chicken, pork, beef, or seafood. Purée fresh or frozen fruits into dressings or sauces, add fresh fruit to salads and bowls and add to trendy pizza, flatbreads, or tacos.
• Add simple fruits and vegetables to family meals: As families continue to stay-at-home and prioritize healthy eating, ensure newly developed family meals are well-rounded with fruits and vegetables. These can be everyday items like salads, mixed veggies, and fresh fruit.

Source: National Restaurant Association

Indeed, K–12 is too significant a segment to ignore when it comes to healthful fare. In fact, nationwide, schools comprise 9 percent of all foodservice units and 4 percent of all foodservice spending, according to the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association.

The segment’s size makes it ground zero for the childhood obesity crisis, which school foodservice stakeholders could help relieve by re-engineering school menus around nutrition. After all, unhealthy diets are a principal reason that an estimated one in five children age 2 to 19—about 14 million kids—are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.¹

Healthy-Eating Hurdles

Schools face unique regulatory and financial challenges that could hinder the pursuit of more flavorful, fresh and wholesome ingredients. Although the Obama-era Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 mandated school lunches with less sodium, more whole-grain foods and fewer sweetened drinks, for instance, the Trump administration wants to ease the standards in order to reduce schools’ menu-planning challenges.¹

Even after overcoming regulatory and financial obstacles, schools must persuade kids to embrace better-for-you food. In many ways, that is the ultimate challenge, as there’s no point in offering healthy food if students won’t eat it.

In spite of the challenges, healthy eating champions must persist. Because without their intervention, the status quo—highly processed, low-nutrition items that are cheap and plentiful—will remain the default setting for school foodservice operators.

Nourishing Opportunities

Suppliers and distributors who offer healthy foods will find an especially eager (and growing) audience in the K–12 segment. Approximately half of school districts in the 2018–2019 school year served cleaner-label menu options; a year later, 91 percent of them were considering expanding their menus to include more nutritious, better-for-you offerings.²

Healthful Hits

Combining wholesome offerings that have exceptional flavor with clever marketing campaigns has helped some school districts win student favor.

At Broken Arrow High School in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, for example, the school dietitian and strength and conditioning coach worked together to create a menu that would appeal to student athletes. Called the Tiger Nutrition Training Table, it meets federal school lunch regulations and features dishes that were formulated to maximize student athletes’ health and performance. The meals offer the maximum allowable calories, with more complex carbohydrates and fruit and vegetable options.³ For example, one qualifying lunch is teriyaki chicken with brown rice and vegetables—a mixture of lean protein and whole grains. Each day, 200 to 300 students line up for the meals in this program.

In Portland, Oregon, public schools offer an authentic Japanese dish—yakisoba with chicken and vegetables—through a partnership with noodle supplier Umi Organic, which district officials discovered at a food show. The company owner was a graduate of one of the district’s schools and was therefore familiar with its Japanese Immersion program. After the food show meeting, she developed a traditional, whole grain-rich yakisoba noodle that could be prepared in ovens to comply with the district’s cooking equipment. The tasty, authentic dish is now served in all the district’s elementary and secondary schools.⁴

Through thoughtful sourcing, partnerships and creative positioning, healthful food can be a hit with students and parents alike. Begin with high-quality proteins that deliver the essential nutrients students need, and then enhance them with flavorful spices and sauces that appeal to kids’ evolving taste buds. They’ll be sure to tell you what they like—and what they don’t.

Sources:
Content courtesy of Perdue Foodservice
¹Kreidler, Mark, “No More Tater Tots? California Schools Put Healthier Lunches to the Test,” California Healthline, Oct. 15, 2019
²“2019 School Nutrition Trends Report,” School Nutrition Association
³Keleher, Katie, “Broken Arrow Nutrition Program Helps Student Performance”, KJRH-TV, Dec. 9, 2019
⁴Schilling, Becky, “Who’s Serving the Best K-12 School Meals in America?” Food Management, Nov. 12, 2019

Of course, while USDA and FDA regulate the term “healthy” on packaged foods, it is an ever-evolving term to consumers in context of dining choices. To appeal to consumers who prioritize healthy eating, stay current on what the label means to the majority of consumers and incorporate the ingredients, names and menu descriptions that press these on-trend “healthy” buttons.

Clean Labels

The clean-label movement sweeping the food industry incorporates such “feel-real” factors as all-natural and no preservatives, artificial additives, hormones or unnecessary antibiotics. In fact, the fewer ingredients, the better, and those used must be easily recognized and understood by consumers. Transparency by food distributors and operators assures consumers that these guidelines have been honored.

A significant 81 percent of health-conscious consumers say they care more about real ingredients than calories when dining out.¹ Among the many free-from food product claims the industry makes, consumers consider hormone-free and antibiotic-free most important.²

Functional Foods

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, 62 percent of surveyed consumers say general well-being motivates their desire to eat healthfully, compared to 47 percent who say they do so to lose weight.³ It’s therefore not surprising that functional foods with positive health attributes are more sought after than foods that minimize negatives (as in low-calorie, low-sugar and low-sodium). What’s more, half of surveyed consumers agree that high nutrient content is more important than “free-from” claims.²

Adding functional ingredients or superfoods has become an increasingly popular menu-development strategy. Including the word power in a dish’s name is one way to signal to diners that it contains superfoods. At breakfast, for example, an establishment could offer something like “Power Flats” breakfast sandwiches on multigrain flatbread, or at lunch a Power Greens Shrimp Caesar Salad.

Protein

Today’s health-conscious consumers are keen on proteins—both animal- and plant-based varieties.

Plant-based protein shipments to foodservice outlets increased 20 percent in 2018, likely in response to the fact that 60 percent of consumers aim to cut down on meat consumption for reasons including health, weight management and even climate change.⁴ But that doesn’t mean distributors and operators should abandon animal proteins, which are rich in nutrients and offer satisfying taste and texture that are difficult to replicate.

Chicken remains one of consumers’ most favored proteins. Some 40 percent of consumers have indicated they’re eating more chicken than they did in the prior year.⁵

For now, consumers focused on healthy dining choices are gravitating to clean labels, functional foods and protein. But their priorities are always subject to change. Evaluate and adjust your offerings and messaging to meet consumers’ evolving “healthy” criteria to remain relevant and capture their business.

Sources:
¹Mintel’s Healthy Dining Trends – US – March 2019 report
²Mintel’s Free-from Foods – US – June 2019 report
³Mintel’s Better for You Eating Trends – US – August 2018 report,
⁴Forgrieve, Janet, “Plant-based Foods Play a Growing Role on Foodservice Menus,” SmartBrief, Sept. 9, 2019,
⁵Mintel’s Poultry – US – December 2018 report
Content courtesy of Perdue Foodservice 

Consumers are continuing to broaden their palates. And with specialty barbecue comes a wide range of flavors that go beyond regional favorites and expand across the globe to places like Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. 36% of consumers are ordering ethnic foods or food with ethnic flavors at least weekly.¹

The popularity of barbecue is also impacting the types of proteins your customers enjoy. Traditional meats, like beef and pork, will always be barbecue staples. But non-traditional offerings, like turkey, are also becoming more popular. In fact, the numbers show that 63% of all barbecue restaurants have a turkey offering on their menu².

So, what makes turkey such a great choice?

Let’s start with its superior yield. We’re talking an 80% cooked yield (when prepared in a smoker) compared to 50% for beef brisket. For you that means a lot more meat on your menu.

Turkey is also easy to smoke, prep and serve. It smokes in less time than other proteins. And with its neutral profile, turkey will readily absorb a variety of unique flavors — from the smoking process itself to the bold seasonings in your sauces and rubs.

For operations that want to offer more nutritious options without sacrificing flavor, turkey is a delicious alternative. In fact, 45% of consumers would be very likely to order healthier options at restaurants if offered³.

Global flavors. Nutritious proteins. These are the latest specialty barbecue trends to focus on as we approach peak season; and throngs of sun soaked customers clamber for their favorite foods of summer.

Want more BBQ? Check out our massive BARBECUE SEASON page!

¹Technomic’s 2018 US Ethnic Food and Beverage Consumer Trend Report
²2018 – Datassential Menu Trends, US Chains & Independents 2018
³2018 US Healthy Eating Consumer Trend Report