Sodexo’s Campaign Is Scrum-tious

Sodexo received a powerful boost last month when English rugby legend Matt Dawson travelled to Ireland to help promote the ‘Be Part Of It’ campaign. Dawson – Sodexo Ireland and UK ambassador for health and wellbeing, UK Celebrity Masterchef winner and former Rugby World Cup winner – was in Dublin to promote the a recipe and lifestyle programme which he co-designed with the company to raise awareness of crucial health and wellbeing messages. Sodexo Ireland employs 2,000 people in 220 staff restaurants managed by the company nationwide, serving over 90,000 customers daily. The Sodexo ‘Be Part of It’ campaign promotes the use of fresh ingredients where possible and Sodexo Ireland spends over €17million on local Irish produce annually, the majority of its food budget. Margot Slattery, managing director of Sodexo Ireland said: “We are delighted to have Matt with us.  Like him, we are passionate about food and place huge importance on the use of local, seasonal and fresh ingredients where possible. There are many fantastic local artisan producers that we use via Irish distributors like Pallas and Keelings. It makes good business sense to support the Irish food industry as not only is it very important to clients and communities in Ireland, we also have exceptional quality right on our doorstep.” Matt said: “Cooking and eating the right foods at the right times can have amazing effects on both your mental and physical wellbeing. For instance, we all know eating breakfast sets us up for the day and gives us the fuel to make the rest of the day more productive. It also means we are less hungry during the morning and so are not tempted to eat high sugar, high fat snacks.” All the recipes in the Sodexo ‘Be Part of It’ campaign promote and use ingredients that aim to reduce the levels of fat, salt and sugar. Some examples of this includes using herbs and spices instead of salt to infuse food with flavour, replacing butter and vegetable oil with olive or rapeseed oil as a healthier alternative, and adding more fresh fruit to desserts to help achieve the  recommended ‘5 a day’.