Leon founder Henry Dimbleby gave a pre-recorded interview at our recent Foodservice Inflation Index (FPI) Briefing. As most will know, Henry and his team wrote the National Food Strategy, which was published in July 2021.

The food strategy focused on two key areas – health and environment. On the environment he was keen to point out that food has been the single largest cause of the collapse of global biodiversity, with over 69% of wildlife wiped out since 1970. It’s the biggest cause of water stress, soil degradation, destruction of rainforests, and the crisis in aquatic life. And it contributes around one third of global carbon emissions, second only to the energy sector as a contributor to the current climate emergency.

But it was his comments about hospitality that sparked the biggest debate. He suggested that as a sector we are “missing a trick” on the nature story, and that taking positive action on improving our sourcing/marketing could help attract diners. And he challenged our sector to adopt targets on reduction of meat consumption.

This second point garnered some pretty extreme discussions during the post event drinks, ranging from “that’s the least we should be doing” all the way to “that’s a ridiculous suggestion”. At face value, both of these extreme positions have some merits. After all, if you are running a steak chain it’s not going to be popular to replace tender, luscious, juicy beef with lentil stew, however worthy that might seem.

But “face value” can be dangerous. Simplifying these kind of decisions just polarises opinions, and allows the status quo to prevail. We don’t need to look far in our sector to see some deep commitments and action taking place. Our contact caterers are leading the way on shifting consumption from meat to plants. Compass have a target for a 25% reduction of animal protein by 2025 and 40% by 2030, and Elior’s ambition is for a 40% reduction in beef consumption by 2025. Sodexo meanwhile have a goal of 33% of menus to be plant-based worldwide by 2025.

Those businesses have the same challenges as the rest of the sector, but have chosen to avoid a policy of “we only give our diners what they ask for” in favour of a more nuanced one. Their approach is not to deny choice to their diners, but to seek ways to inspire their customers – seeking to change the “meat and two-veg” mindset by offering many more attractive choices. This strategy involves setting a challenge to our chef teams to use their amazing powers of creativity as a force for “good-changes” from our consumers.

I’ve spent over 50-years working in the hospitality sector and I truly believe that this is really special place. If you pause to consider it, hospitality is pretty much the only place in the whole food system where people preparing and making food can also have an immediate conversation with people in the act of eating. So to our operators I would just urge positivity. Reducing meat consumption really can be done without alienating our diners - we just need to unleash our creativity, and implement any changes in a way that adds to diner choice rather than destroying the customer proposition. Every ounce of plant protein that replaces an ounce of animal protein is (plagiarising alert) “one small step for man, contributing to a giant leap for mankind”.

If you would like to watch the full interview with Henry you can see it here