Educating guests about food’s impact on climate change
On April 22, 2008, all Bon Appétit cafés were transformed into “low carbon learning venues” for our first annual Low Carbon Diet Day. Although operational changes in our kitchens started one year prior, Low Carbon Diet Day marked the beginning of our customer education campaign and the launch of Bon Appétit’s interactive web-based tool, the Low Carbon Diet Calculator (www.eatlowcarbon.org).
For this one day, every station in each Bon Appétit café illustrated one principle of the Low Carbon Diet. For example, beef and cheese are high carbon foods because they come from cows and cows emit methane gas, which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide. At the grill station on Low Carbon Diet Day, low carbon turkey burgers were on the menu instead of high carbon beef burgers. Guests wondering why turkey has a lower carbon impact than beef could read about this principle on the nearby sign. Throughout the café, guests also learned about the carbon impact of food waste, air-freighted seafood, tropical produce, and unnecessary packaging.
By providing creative and great-tasting low carbon menu options that day, our chefs proved that eating low carbon does not mean sacrificing flavor. In fact, many “Low Carbon Diet Day specials” were so popular, many have become staple menu offerings in our cafés.
