European FOOD project launched – Fighting Obesity through Offer and Demand Europe and Public Health – January, 19th & 20th 2009, in Bruxelles

As part of its Community Action program in the field of health and consumer protection, the European Commission (DG SANCO – Health and Consumer Protection) made a call for proposals concerning the fight against obesity and against the inequality of access to a balanced diet. It responds to the three goals that have been set for the 2007-2013 period:

- Improving citizens’ health security;
- Promoting health in order to reinforce prosperity and solidarity;
- Producing and spreading knowledge about health.

Our commitments

Relying on the one of the kind channel of communication that the Ticket Restaurant allows to create between employees and restaurants, Accor Services would like to develop its ability in positively influencing both restaurant food offers and European citizens’ lifestyles and habits.

Accor Services already had under its belt the « Nutrition & Balance » pilot program which started in France in 2005 and was represented by the mascot « Gustino » and aimed at promoting a balanced diet.
Accor Services wanted to get even more involved by asking for advice from political, economic, social and medical experts.

All the members of the Consortium thus created, share a common interest: promoting healthy lifestyles and fight against obesity. This led to the project naming: « FOOD » : Fighting Obesity through Offer and Demand!

By offering a tight cooperation between the private and public sectors, Accor Services – a French and European responsible Company – tries to make the most of this unique vector that is the meal voucher (23 million users and 1 million affiliated restaurants worldwide) for the promotion of public policies with specific targets that can be hard to reach.
Furthermore, this program is totally in line with the Accor Group Earth Guest program of sustainable development, in which balanced diet is one of the 8 priorities.

• The project

After having evaluated the existing programs and carried out a study concerning needs, experts will establish recommendations (adapted to cultures and specific contexts) in order to allow the Consortium to act:

•    With restaurants: they be will offered elaborated guides by partners, information conferences, a monitoring, field trainings designed for chefs and dining room staff, a training kit, together with information and demo DVDs.
•    With companies: Managers, Human Resources Directors and doctors will be invited to take part in the program. A complete website will be updated on a regular basis and adapted to the pilots of each country. Guides and educational films directed at the employees (who are consumers and sometimes parents) will be downloadable, together with advice, tips and recipes. Information posters and trainings will be offered to Companies.

The FOOD project will bring a real added value as several pilots starting with a common basis and having different orientations and goals are carried out in parallel, allowing experts to centralize and analyze the best practices to spread their recommendations within the six countries and then, throughout all the institutions that work on the subject (NGOs, think tank, Committees with experts attached to national governments, etc.). This is why a FOOD bus will travel over the six concerned countries to meet restaurants providers and employees during a Road Show.

• The partners

Since the 20th of January 2009, and during 2 years, the FOOD project mobilize more than 20 public and private partners in 6 European countries: France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic and Sweden.
The associated countries and partners are:

- In Belgium: Ministry of Health (PNNS) and the HeLdB-CIRIHA
- In Spain: Ministry of Health (AESAN) and the Fundación Dieta Mediterranea
- In France: Paul Bocuse Institute
- In Italy: University of Perugia
- In Czech Republic: Czech Society for the Study of Obesity
- In Sweden: the Karolinska Institute