Legume food development in catering institutional food services

Slides presented during " The Diversity of end uses for Legumes"

Webinar 4: European legumes in transition 27th April 2021

"Legume food development in catering  - institutional food services"

Legume consumption is low in Europe and institutional food services (IFS) such as school canteens could help to foster new eating habits. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the use of legumes in this specific sector and to identify brakes and levers in sourcing, cooking and service processes.

In 2019, we addressed an online survey to IFS kitchens in France, the largest IFS sector in Europe. We collected 383 complete answers that revealed heterogeneous practices through clustering methods.

This first and original study shows that, even though they are not majority (16%), kitchens that have a high rate of legume use are also those with a strong sustainability profile (higher frequency of alternative dishes, local and organic products). Moreover, our analysis revealed ways to promote legumes in the IFS sector such as cooks’ training, new and adapted recipes, rethinking technical infrastructures, and make the guests more aware of the environmental and nutritional benefits of legumes.

Presented by : Hugo Fernandez-Inigo - INRAE, France