1.2 million plant-based meals: less carbon and improved health

Corporate Responsibility Food
Apr. 04, 2024

At NYC Health + Hospitals in the United States, Sodexo teams serve around 15,000 meals each day!

Plant-based dishes are the chef’s recommendation for lunch and dinner every single day.

As well as plant-based dishes being versatile, delicious and comforting, they also generate less carbon and eating them has huge health benefits.

At Sodexo we’ve committed to offering 33% plant-based dishes in our menus by 2025. So, we were delighted when NYC Health + Hospitals asked our teams on site to introduce Meatless Mondays.

How it all began: Meatless Monday’s

Back in 2019 NYC Health + Hospitals made a pledge for patients to be offered plant-based meals every Monday to support decreasing carbon emissions within the city of New York.

The Sodexo teams on site then delivered Meatless Mondays across acute care, initially just at lunchtime then after only a few months for the evening meal too.

Although patients had the option to request a meat-based dish instead, the plant-based meals were incredibly popular and an average of 97% of patients were eating a plant-based dish each Monday.

Rolling out plant-based meals

In March 2022 the team at NYC Health + Hospitals decided to expand on this success by offering a plant-based meal as the chef’s recommended dish every lunchtime. Later in the same year, plant-based meals became the primary option for all evening meals too. A plant-based dish is now offered as the automatic default dish to all patients.

All meals are made from scratch by our teams at the Culinary Center in Brooklyn. The culinary team members who take the patient food orders explain the flavor and nutrition of the day’s plant-based options and gather patient feedback about the meal. Each new recipe is piloted as chef’s recommendation and only enters the regular menu rotation if it achieves an 80% or above satisfaction rate.

36% reduction in carbon emissions

+ 90%

Patient satisfaction

783,000

Plant-based meals served in 2023

36%

Reduction in carbon year on year

This small dietary shift has had a huge impact. As of May 2023, patient satisfaction remains above 90% and the overall uptake of plant-based meals for 2023 is 43%. 783,000 plant-based meals were served in 2023, the first full year of the program and up from 150,000 in 2022.

The initiative has also led to a massive 36% reduction in carbon year on year.

The health benefits of plant-based meals

Patients are at NYC Health + Hospitals are receiving all the nutrition they need from plant-based ingredients and could be healthier for it. Scientific research has shown that following a plant-based diet has many health benefits and can help to improve conditions which have caused patients to be admitted to hospital such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. When discharged from hospital patients are also given a booklet of plant-based recipes to make at home.

We employ 150 registered dieticians at NYC Health + Hospitals and are proud of how our collaborative work here has been able to make such a big difference, both in terms of health and carbon emission reduction.

Find out more about some of the brilliant, registered dieticians who are making a huge difference to the health of the consumers we serve all over the world.

1.2 million plant-based meals and counting

2 years after the roll out of plant-based meals across every day of the week, NYC Health + Hospitals are celebrating having served 1.2 million plant-based meals.
To mark the occasion our Chairwoman and CEO, Sophie Bellon, visited the Culinary Center in New York.

Like our partner NYC Health + Hospitals, corporate responsibility and sustainability-focused goals are at the heart of what we do. By shifting to plant-based meals we have been able to support the goals of the client whilst prioritizing patient health and striving for more sustainable practices on a large scale.

In our wider business we have committed to low-carbon main dishes accounting for 70% of the dishes we serve by 2030.

Find out more about plant-based meals at NYC Health + Hospitals in the press release.

Find out more about sustainable eating at Sodexo

NYC Health + Hospitals

NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest municipal healthcare system in the United States with a workforce of more than 40,000 healthcare professionals across a network of 11 hospitals, 5 skilled nursing facilities, dozens of community centers and an insurance plan. Sodexo is working with NYC Health + Hospitals under a 15-year contract, which has recently been extended.