{"id":1940,"date":"2017-03-20T11:07:01","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T11:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eventsglos.wordpress.com\/?p=1940"},"modified":"2018-11-20T10:59:52","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T10:59:52","slug":"is-your-event-catering-discriminatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/2017\/03\/20\/is-your-event-catering-discriminatory\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Event Catering Discriminatory?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent study has shown that 3 out of 5 sport event attendees eat at home to avoid eating at the stadium.\u00a0 It is widely agreed that food options at events are often expensive, unhealthy, lack nutritional information,\u00a0and fail to cater for\u00a0different dietary requirements.<\/strong><\/p>\n

With this in mind, we want to explore the extent to which event managers are failing to cater (in terms of the food they provide) for the needs of their attendees.<\/p>\n

Event managers must acknowledge the relevance of both The Food Regulations Law of 2014 and\u00a0The Equality Act 2010.\u00a0 While lacking in apparent relevance to the topic, the Equality Act requires all religions and personal beliefs\u00a0to be\u00a0respected and catered for accordingly. \u00a0Not only are we failing to comply with these standards beyond the bare minimum, our own research has shown that a vast number of event attendees (72%) agree that events are failing to provide them with useful nutritional information.\u00a0 The Food Regulations Law 2014 recommends labelling food in order to advise of ingredients and potential allergens.\u00a0 Thus, we pose the following questions:<\/p>\n

Are we, at large, failing to comply with the recommendations of The Food Regulations Law of 2014<\/em>?\u00a0 And, are we discriminating against our customers\u2019 personal belief system<\/em>s and choices by failing to supply a breadth of catering options?<\/em><\/p>\n

We want to discuss what you, as an event manager, could be doing to improve catering standards for your customers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Problem<\/h2>\n

As event managers, we should be striving to meet the most basic needs of all of our guests, acknowledging them as individuals with varying needs and preferences, rather than choosing to turn a blind eye and remain ignorant to a broad spectrum of dietary requirements. How can we expect our guests to enjoy the intangible, experiential elements of an event, when we have fallen at the first hurdle?<\/p>\n

Failing to satisfy basic, primal needs, will undoubtedly lead to unsatisfied guests. In fact, events are arguably losing out on a momentous amount of potential revenue. With the previously mentioned 60%* of attendees choosing to eat either before or after an event, because events have failed to satisfy their eating preferences.<\/p>\n

How are Event Managers Currently Addressing the Issue?<\/h2>\n

Considering current industry practice, there are a few occurrences surrounding dietary requirements at events, some showing positive action from event professionals and some not so much.<\/p>\n

In the UK, Reading Festival allow attendees to bring their own food into the campsites, and exceptions can be made in the arena for those who have special requirements. However, major sporting event, London Olympics 2012, disallowed the entry of personal food or drinks over 100ml, essentially forcing attendees to buy and eat food at the venue. \u00a0With\u00a0just short of 700,000 internationals attending the event, this meant that choices catering for a broad spectrum of dietary requirements were inherently limited.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Fosters, an event catering company based in the South West, are ensuring they cater for individuals with food\u00a0intolerances and\u00a0dietary\u00a0requirements by following the 14 common food allergens.\u00a0 These have been recognised by the Food Standards Agency, who state that a decade ago, allergies and intolerances were rare, but, in contrast, \u201callergies are now widespread in the UK with around 21 million people suffering from at least one allergy, increasing by 5% each year”.\u00a0 Taking this on board, Fosters are\u00a0especially\u00a0mindful of\u00a0food allergies and intolerances when planning and preparing their\u00a0menus for events.<\/p>\n

As an event manager are you ensuring your event caterer has the same procedures\u00a0as Fosters?<\/p>\n

How Should We Be Responding?<\/h2>\n

Taking everything into consideration, and how effective the responses currently are –\u00a0how should you<\/em>, as an event manager<\/em> respond?<\/p>\n

Firstly, attaining a comprehensive understanding and knowledge of the dietary requirements of attendees is imperative, and there are various ways to manage this. \u00a0\u00a0Good practice requires event managers to incorporate planning for dietary requirements by using pre-registration as a starting point. While this may not work for large-scale events, it does allow event managers to understand and acknowledge the needs of a smaller audience, providing the attendees with the option to state any dietary requirements, allowing the event manager to manage these more effectively in advance. As well as this, monitoring consumer responses and emotions on social media can show event managers where they have the potential to improve.<\/p>\n

Additionally, flexible and adaptable caterers are better equipped to meet the needs of a variety of dietary requirements, with a more creative, exciting approach to catering.\u00a0 Further adding to this, with 71%* of spectators expecting nothing but fast food at large football stadiums, along with almost half (45%)* of attendees feeling uneasy about the lack of healthy options and the questionable quality of ingredients \u2013 surely it is time to stop discriminating against the varying dietary needs of our attendees, step up our catering game, and, fundamentally, give our attendees what they actually want?<\/p>\n

As an event manager, we want to know what you <\/em>think. Are you responding to recommended best practice regarding food provision at your events?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also, how much do you, as an event manager know about allergies and intolerances? Click here<\/a> to our take our test on the Food Standard Agency’s 14 allergens and comment below with your result!<\/strong><\/p>\n

* All statistics provided by Tobin (2013) and can be accessed at:\u00a0https:\/\/yougov.co.uk\/news\/2013\/12\/19\/stadium-food-bottom-league-sports-fans\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent study has shown that 3 out of 5 sport event attendees eat at home to avoid eating at the stadium.\u00a0 It is widely agreed that food options at events are often expensive, unhealthy, lack nutritional information,\u00a0and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":2961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[209],"tags":[138,139,142,143,144,145,14,42,146,147,148],"class_list":["post-1940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-2017","tag-beliefs","tag-catering","tag-contemporaryissues","tag-discrimination","tag-eventmanagement","tag-eventprofs","tag-events","tag-food","tag-health","tag-lifestyle","tag-religion"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2017\/03\/food-question.jpg?fit=798%2C439&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2963,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions\/2963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/eventsglos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}