Promoting Healthy Eating in Community Cafés

The Scottish Community Diet Project explains how thirteen existing community cafés in Glasgow were targeted in a project to increase healthy eating choices made by customers.

Project date: 2003 – 2004

Project location: Urban

Project origins, aims and objectives:

The project aimed to increase healthy eating choices in thirteen community cafes in Glasgow. Healthier choices were defined as meals that were low in sugar, salt and fat and high in fruit, vegetables and complex carbohydrates such as pasta, potatoes, rice and bread. The intervention tackled four areas which were identified in the Glasgow Food and Health Action Framework as maximising access to and affordability, availability and awareness of safe and nutritious food in community cafes. The findings from the evaluation showed that a fifth area – acceptability of healthy foods was an additional area for consideration when promoting healthy eating.

Organisations Involved:

The following organisations were responsible for instigating the project:

Scottish Community Diet Project
Greater Glasgow NHS Board
Scottish Healthy Choices Award Scheme (now called Healthyliving Award)

Glasgow City Council Environmental Protection Services assisted by delivering food hygiene training to café staff. Community Mobile Chefs assisted by providing training on food preparation and presentation.

Community cafes taking part in the project: Castlemilk Pensioners Action Centre, Glenburn, Jeely Piece, Jenniburn, Kinfauns, Leithland, New Horizons, Possil & Milton disability forum, Ruchill family centre, Stonedyke, The Sunflower Café, Waverley Neighbourhood Centre Café, Way to Go Youth Café.

Target Audience:

Users of the community centre cafes.

Background:

The national concern for the high levels of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other diet related conditions that continue to be prevalent in Scotland were highlighted in the Scottish Diet Action Plan (1996). This concern was further highlighted in the Food and Health Action Framework for Glasgow (2001), where a multi – agency approach was recommended. Community cafes provide an ideal setting for the promotion of healthy eating in the community by being accessible and affordable to a wide range of people. They are places where consumers can be given the opportunity to make small but significant changes to their diet.

Methodology:

The project comprised of five key elements;

Health promotion – cafes received support and encouragement from a Health Promotion Officer as well as a grant of £300 for the purchasing and promotion of fruit and vegetables. Most cafes used a combination of local cash and carry, catering suppliers and local retailers such as supermarkets for supplies.
Scottish Healthy Choices Award Scheme – cafes received support and advice from the Award’s National Co-ordinator to make changes to their menus as well as recipes and encouragement to aim for the Scottish Healthy Choices Award. The criteria for the award are;
- Provide a healthy eating environment (including high standards of food safety)
- Provide healthy food choices
- Promote healthy food choices
Food hygiene and safety – Glasgow City Council provided tailored food hazard analysis training to the cafes and made on site visits. Prior to the project, many of the cafes management committees were not aware that they were responsible for compliance with legal food safety standards.
Mobile chef – the cafes had access to a mobile chef who could share knowledge and skills on healthier cooking methods and presentation.
Training and support materials – café staff and volunteers had access to a six week training course based upon Health Scotland’s ‘Just for Starters’ toolkit.

Funding:

A grant of £300 was made available to all the cafes for the purchasing and promotion of fruit and vegetables.

Evaluation:

Some of the cafes experienced difficulties in meeting the criteria for the Scottish Healthy Choices Award but despite this, all the cafes were successful at either providing new healthy choices on their menus and/or changing to healthier preparation or cooking methods. Prior to the project, none of the community cafes had received the award. Five of the cafes achieved the award at the end of the project and four of the five still hold it.

Access to, affordability, awareness and acceptability of healthy foods was improved but also cafes generally offer a wider choice of meals, and staff and volunteers are more aware of the importance of eating a healthy diet and generally have more food preparation skills.

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Lessons Learnt:

Access to healthy foods

People with disabilities need to be able to access café facilities
Determine who are the customers of the café i.e. are they people who work in or attend the community centre? – any change in the centres activities might change the customer base
Can the café purchase healthier foods from its local suppliers? Sometimes local supermarkets and retailers are more expensive than wholesalers or cash and carry although they can be more convenient. Can a buying network of more than one café be established?

Affordability

Healthy meals priced at the same or less than other meals is a requirement of the Scottish Healthy Choices Award. Most cafes found it possible to do this but a few had to absorb the extra costs within the general budget so that the cost to the consumer was the same.
Cafés had free taster sessions followed by half price offers to encourage uptake. Successful meals were then sold at full price for a trial period until they were kept or rejected for the regular menu.

Availability

Cafés used a mixture of introducing new healthier meals (e.g. ratatouille), and healthier cooking and preparation methods. Changing over to healthier preparation and cooking methods was successful for all cafes, and customers were rarely aware that methods had changed e.g. changing to low fat spread.

Awareness

Staff and volunteers need to be aware of what a balanced diet means and how this can be achieved, which requires training. This increases their confidence
Make sure that customers are aware of the café’s commitment to healthy eating, why it is important and how it can benefit them.
Promote healthy options by highlighting them on the menu and using posters etc.
Celebrate healthy eating achievements

Acceptability
Many customers understood that it is important to eat a healthy diet although perceptions of this varied, with some customers associating it with weight loss and less tasty food. Despite some customer resistance, many of the cafes were successful in increasing acceptability of healthy foods by the following methods;

Ensuring that the food tastes, looks and smells good and has a pleasing texture.
‘Health by stealth’: sometimes the cafes used healthier preparation methods without making the customers aware.
Persuasion methods, including attractive pricing, free tasters and presentation (one café put the healthier choices at the start of a buffet so that plates would be filled up at the start and there was less room for the chips at the end!)
Gradual menu changes
Consideration of customer preferences can avoid wastage. For example cafés with elderly customers found it difficult to get them to eat fresh fruit but they enjoyed tinned fruit and fruit based puddings.
A positive staff attitude is important – to show customers what they can eat (not what they can’t). Don’t be put off by initial reluctance to change from customers.

Other lessons learnt
Cafés need a lot of support to be successful at increasing the number of healthy foods on a menu and their uptake. Training is essential for this so that café staff are willing and have commitment to the changes. Cafés need to be aware of what is involved and what can be gained. It is also important to have a person or group who will take responsibility for co-ordinating the changes.

Contact Details:

Scottish Community Diet Project
Email: scdp@scotconsumer.org.uk
Website: www.dietproject.org.uk

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