Slovakia

When the two national partners decided to implement the FOOD programme in the country, both agreed on the necessity for fast action while still maintaining rigorous quality. Thus, the first step of the project, namely the inventory of the existing programmes and the surveys (both qualitative and quantitate) were not carried out in Slovakia. Making use of the recent health data of the Public Health Authority, the partners could indeed began the project by defining specific national recommendations and designing a communication strategy aimed at the two main target groups.
The local partners used the studies elaborated by the six original pilot countries to then plan the messages and tools.

Recommendations to the employees

• Taste the food before adding salt and/or try other condiments;
• Lower the use of fat and referably use vegetal oils;
• Eat at least 5 portions of fruit/begetables perday;
• As a dessert, choose a fresh fruit based option and sometimes as an alternative, a dairy product;
• Choose tpes of cooking that do not add too much fat (steaming, roast, grill, etc.);
• Chose water to accompany your lunch;
• Prefer whole wheat or rye bread;
• With every meal, eat vegetables or fruit;
• As a drink for lunch preffered to drinking water;
• Set meals suitable for you. Meals should be varied and should include vegetables, fruits, dried fruits, or meat with low fat;
• During the day, it is recommended to consume four to five meals in smaller portions. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then, lunch and dinner is the the third important meal. The snack should preferably be fruits and vegetables, limit fatty foods and dishes rich in salt. Banish hunger between meal with for example a small amount of unsalted nuts, dried fruit, olives, slices of wholemeal bread, fresh fruit, fresh fruit juices and low-fat or moderate dairy produts;
• Daily drink at least 2 liters of fluid. Prefer drinking water than sweetened drinks

Recommendations to the restaurants

• Favour cooking mathods such as steam, oven or grill;
• Offer the option of half portions of food;
• Do not put salt on the table;
• Provide alternatives to the products and dishes bzsed on wholemeal flour, wholemeal pasta and the like. Eg. upon request, serve whole wheat or rye bread;
• Serve the sauce separately;
• Allow guests to eat more fresh vegetables, such as to leave room for the salad place, serve salas as a first or serve it directly on the plate;
• Offer tap water;
• Put the menu low fat dressing and olive oil;
• For dessert, serve more fresh fruits, fruit or milk dessert;
• Offer a choice of different attachments to all foods - even to the daily menu;
• Offer more meals of meat low in fat, for example: poultry and beef;
• While eating indicate the energy value in kJ (eg. how many kilojoules are the components of the meal

Criteria to respect in order to be part of the FOOD restaurants’ network

Following the creation of the FOOD recommendations for restaurants, a network of restaurants respecting a certain number of recommendations was created.
In Slovakia, restaurants have to apply 6 out of the 12 recommendations in order to be part of the FOOD restaurants network.

To see the map of the entire network of FOOD restaurants, click here

Along the project and programme phase, several communication tools targeting both target groups were created:

See the Communication tools for employees

See the Communication tools for restaurants

Questionnaires inspired from the 2009-2010 surveys conducted during the project phase, called the FOOD barometers, have been launched every year since 2012 to monitor the evolution of the habits and opinions of both target groups – employees and restaurants - about balanced food.

Click here to consult the results for Slovakia

The data collected during the evaluation allows the partners to adapt the communication strategy to employees and restaurants’ needs and expectations. This is a continuous improvement of the programme, its messages and communication tools.