Just Eat is to trial carbon labelling on meals delivered to corporate clients.
The pilot, which will involve 10 restaurants and run for 12 weeks, follows research with 127 workers in London that showed nearly half said they considered the environmental impact of the food they order into the office.
The food delivery platform ran a 12-week pilot in the spring for its consumer-facing business.
Just Eat for Business said the trial would show companies how they can make more climate conscious choices with the food they’re ordering for their employees. It will also help restaurants better understand their environmental impacts, explained MD Matt Ephgrave.
Data for both trails has been provided by MyEmissions.
Carbon labels, as well as eco-scores, have become increasingly popular in the foodservice sector in recent months.
In March, WSH announced it was working with Nutritics to put carbon scores on main meals across all its sites.
Gather and Gather are working with Foodsteps to roll out climate data labels at Sky’s staff catering sites, while Microsoft are trialling the concept in their canteens too. The tech giant claims a pilot at its headquarters showed “conclusively” that the presence of carbon labels influences consumers to choose meals with a lower environmental impact.
A far larger field experiment at five University of Cambridge cafeterias with over 80,000 individual meal choices found carbon labels reduced sales of meatier meals with vegan, vegetarian and fish dishes all becoming more popular. The labels were associated with a 4.3% reduction in average carbon emissions per meal
Leon, Wahaca, Benugo, Peach Pubs and Ask Italian are among the high street restaurant and pub chains to have put climate information on their menus.
The data is proving particularly valuable behind the scenes too. “We can actually understand where our hotspots are, so we can focus on buying less of a product or a more sustainable, low-carbon product,” said Mike Hanson, director of sustainable business at WSH .
A Footprint Intelligence report published in March highlighted some of the foodservice companies that are offering their chefs climate data so they can swap ingredients and reduce the impact of their recipes.
