FRESH CONTENT FROM QUARTERLY
How Sodexo’s updated Mindful program is embracing a new era of wellness Over a year in the making, the food management company’s new and improved wellness program aims to take a more holistic approach to health.
BY BENITA GINGERELLA
T he concept of health and wellness has seen many changes in the past couple of years, so when it was time for Sodexo to update its wellness-focused Mindful program, the team knew it had to go make sure it was involving all aspects of health and nutrition that are top of mind for today’s consumer. The program’s update, which took over a year to complete, involved the work of several different stakeholders throughout the company including dietitians, chefs, fitness professionals and more. “We [got] everyone together to make sure that we were aligned with the most up to date science nutritionally and be up to date with the best practices in all of these different
areas that actually touch health and wellness,” says Registered Dietician and Senior Manager for Culinary Systems at Sodexo Micheline Cormier. The new and improved Mindful not only offers guests a variety of new recipes intended to reflect the most recent dietary guidelines for Americans, but it also provides Sodexo teams and their customers with a more holistic approach to health. From idea to full-fledged recipe The updated Mindful program introduced a variety of new dishes to Sodexo menus, including buffalo chicken quesadillas, fall harvest falafel wraps, pulled beef and spicy pepper relish paninis and pumpkin pancakes. Each dish passed a rigorous development
process to make it to diners’ plates. The multi-step process begins with market insights that reveal current food trends and ingredients and flavors that are popular with diners. Once the team analyzes the insights, they go to a consumer panel with names and descriptions of potential recipes to get their take. From there, the team creates dishes based on the consumer feedback. Each dish follows a variety of nutrition requirements including having limited added sugars and calories, enough protein and fiber, and more. The Sodexo team also considers how complicated the recipes are and aims to ensure they are as simple as possible so that they may be easily replicated across different locations.
Powered by FlippingBook