Bélgica

Following a consolidation of the results from the first survey of 2009 and the inventory, experts outlined a set of recommendations targeted at restaurants and employees.
The purpose of these recommendations was to offer tangible and practical advice to help both target groups adopt healthier nutritional habits.

Despite the intention of some partners to have only common European recommendations, each country decided to adapt the recommendations to its local cultural habits. Following further consultation on national level, the partners accepted six common European recommendations to employees and one to the restaurants.

• 1) I eat at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day:
  • If possible, choose locally grown seasonal produce
  • One portion = +- 80g = +- one fistful
• 2) I eat starchy food in every meal:
  • Eat a variety of grains: whole rice, pasta, bulgur, quinoa, corn and semolina wheat. Prefer healthy cooking methods.
• 3) I taste the food before adding salt:
  • Do not add salt to the cooking water
  • Flavour the food with other condiments such as herbs or spices
• 4) On certain days I can do without meat:
  • Replace meat with other proteins such as: quorn, tofu, fish, eggs etc. Choose white and lean meats
• 5) I eat fish once or twice a week:
  • Eat fatty fish such as: salmon, sardines, anchovy, mackerel etc., prepared using healthy cooking methods.
• 6) I drink 1.5 litre of water a day, corresponding to approximately 8-10 glasses of water:
  • Limit tea and coffee consumption to one or two cups a day, preferably with no sugar in it
  • Limit the consumption of alcohol and soft drinks
• 7) I lower the use of fat and prefer the use of vegetable oils:
  • Prefer using vegetable oils such as olive oil or groundnut oil for cooking and rapeseed, sunflower, chestnut, sesame and soya oils for cold preparation
  • Avoid sauces made of butter or cream and prefer milk, light cream and yogurt alternatives
• 8) I eat two dairy products a day preferably low in fat:
  • Choose milk, soft white cheese and yoghurt based desserts. Other cheeses should be eaten in moderation.
  • Substitute dairy products with protein rich soya ones.
• 9) I have treats on special occasions:
  • Alcohol - such as wine and beer – soft drinks, biscuits, cakes and sweets should be consumed in moderation.
• 10) I prefer cooking methods such as steaming, roasting, or frying in a non-stick pan:
  • Avoid deep-fried foods as much as possible and other fatty foods

And…I exercise for at least 30 minutes each day!

The communication campaign officially started in October 2009 with a ‘road show’ in the six participating countries. A double-decker bus customised with the FOOD colours drove through the main city of each of the six countries of the project phase. The journey started in Paris and then continued on to Brussels, Stockholm, Prague, and Milan ending in Madrid. These one-day stops enabled the partners to showcase the first tools created and to explain the project objectives and actions.

The FOOD bus stopped in Brussels for two days, on October the 7th and 8th, 2009.
In the heart of the European district, located in a popular square, the employees and restaurant owners were invited to :

• take with them the national guides with the 10 recommendations
• taste healthy dishes following culinary demonstrations
• have a question and answer session with nutritionists
• try on a 10kg vest, aiming at demonstrating the impact of weight excess

Many groups participated to FOOD seminars given by Nutri-Challenge.

A second survey was conducted in 2010 to try and evaluate the first stage of the project and the success of the tools. At this point the project had achieved many of its targets. Nutritional recommendations had been formed in each country for both the restaurants and the employees and communication tools were created in each country and across the whole project. More than 100 communication initiatives were introduced and implemented in the 28 months duration of the project. Especially popular was the website,visited more than 66,600 times between February 2009 and May 2011.

It was estimated that, after 28 months, around four million employees and 195,000 restaurants had been reached by the messages of the project.

The evaluators pointed out to several difficulties encountered regarding the survey questionnaires, in particular the fact that the questionnaires ended up being very long due to need to assess several types of national interventions, possibly resulting in fewer responses.

Outcomes and impacts on a European level were analysed by the Centre of Research of the Institut Paul Bocuse.

The questionnaires have reached a minimum of 52,000 employees. It is hard to say in which way the project had impacted on employees’ choice of balanced food as the general objective was to sensitise and provide this target group with the information needed to help them make healthier choices. Nevertheless, an important result from the 2010 survey was that 59% of employees were in favour of eating healthily at lunchtime meaning that this continues to be an important target group.
From the restaurant perspective, at least 5,000 establishments were reached via the questionnaires. Very positively, after a few months, more than 1,760 restaurants joined the FOOD restaurant network following national recommendations despite the fact that the interventions targeted at the restaurant staff took place quite late in the project. This short time frame could also offer an explanation to the second survey’s pretty low awareness results from restaurants (only 10% of respondents were familiar with the project’s objectives), yet the results indicated that 51% of them saw the value in serving healthy meal.

Therefore, continued support from programmes such as FOOD is needed to further increase the demand for this kind of food/meals by the customers and to increase the number of restaurants offering it.

On top of the many actions and tools created and implemented and the creation of the FOOD restaurant network a further achievement of the project is the creation of a successful partnership between the public and private sectors.

Employee questionnaire results

Over a quarter of all questionnaire respondents out of the six countries were Belgian (1615 respondents, almost four times the response rate from the previous round in 2009), the biggest response rate from any of the six countries (Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden).

Less than half of all employees surveyed (the smallest number out of all countries) reported to weighing a normal weight. 37% of the respondents (the most out of the six countries) considered themselves overweight.

The results from the second questionnaire contrasted against the results from the first questionnaire highlighting the importance of the country specific cultural setting.
The meaning of balanced food, in line with all other countries, was to the majority of employees ‘various foods in a moderate amount in a nice environment’. Fewer respondents chose the definition of ‘eating pleasant food while protecting your health at the same time’. This is a slight change to the 2009 results where both definitions were almost equally chosen.

38% of employees (compared with 59.5% in 2009) were aware of a programme promoting healthy or balanced food. 45% of those unfamiliar with one would like to have more information on the subject.

Figure 5: employee attitudes to making changes to their eating habits

In the past 12 months, 57% of employees have made or were considering making changes to the way they eat. Out of the 43% who replied to not making changes, 14% claimed to already eat according to healthy eating recommendations.
Over all, less people claimed to have a lunch break. 72% of employees reported to having a lunch break every single day compared with 77.6% in 2009. Similar to that, 6% of respondents claimed to never have a break compared with only 1.8% in 2009. Most employees who have a lunch break still either eat at home or bring food from home.

One of the reasons mentioned by the respondents for eating at home or eating homemade food was the cost of eating out. Lack of time to go out was another reason given by 42% of respondents, up from 31% in the previous questionnaire. Restaurant food being high in calories was the third most important reason.

Similar to Italian respondents, Belgian employees who eat in a restaurant at lunchtime, choose where to eat based on speed of service followed by the price of the food. An offer of varied meals and the nutritional quality of the food were the next most important factors. The choice of food at the restaurant was still determined by people’s wish at the time, even though slightly fewer respondents chose it than in 2009, while ‘what is good for me’ was chosen by 29.2% of respondents compared with 25.5% in 2009. The price was however significantly more important to respondents in 2010.

Restaurant questionnaire results

51 restaurants responded to the second questionnaire, the same number as in 2009. Nearly three quarters of the respondents were male (the most out of the six countries). 60.8% of restaurants that participated in the questionnaire offer a special lunch menu.

Restaurant owners were interested in increasing their knowledge of healthy cooking. However, they were not interested in educating their customers and neither were the employees expecting nutritional information in the restaurant.
Restaurant owners claimed to have noticed a growing interest in healthy food from their customers yet this phenomenon is not significant enough to convince them to make changes to the food they offer.

Budget remains the main obstacle to restaurants wishing to implement changes to their cooking methods. 15% of restaurant owners already believe they offer healthy food. 15% have made changes in the past year and 35% more were considering implementing changes to the food they offer. These results may indicate that initiatives targeted at restaurants are successfully creating a shift in restaurant owners’ attitude toward healthy food.

The results from the second questionnaire indicate that Belgian employees are increasingly experiencing time pressure at lunch and that affects their eating out habits. Fewer employees have a lunch break and the majority still bring food from home into the office. They are however considering the healthfulness of their diet and making changes to their eating habits. This is also a factor they take into account when choosing a restaurant to eat in.

Positively, restaurant owners have noticed that more and more people are interested in healthy food and wished to increase their knowledge about healthy cooking.

Hopefully, this increase in demand for healthy food from employees will continue to grow and once being felt, will encourage all Belgian restaurants to implement the recommendations and improve the food they offer.