Communicate with customers, train your staff on healthy and sustainable food, work with your local community.
Objective 12 of the Bristol Eating Better Award outlines 4 actions you can do around communicating, training and working with others.
For more detailed guidance about the actions see the pdf guidance document (904 KB) .
Talk to your customers
Good communication is key to a successful business. It benefits your relationships with your customers, leaving them with a positive feeling about your company. Letting your customers know that you understand the importance of meeting their needs and are willing to do what it takes to keep them happy is a good way of building customer loyalty.
You can:
- get feedback from your customers about your menu, either through customer feedback surveys, or by asking them
- use customer feedback to improve your menu and make sure your food meets customer demand
Train your staff
Teaching your staff about healthy and sustainable food means they can apply this knowledge to their work and strengthen your reputation as a business that cares about health and sustainability. Training your employees can have benefits such as:
- better productivity
- shared company knowledge
- more efficient business processes
- better staff induction
- improving staff loyalty and reduction in staff turnover
You can:
- train staff on heathier cooking methods as part of their induction process
- encourage staff to do relevant external courses, such as those provided by the Association for Nutrition Training Go to https://www.associationfornutrition.org/careers-nutrition/wider-workforce/wider-workforce-certification (opens new window)
- encourage staff to learn about food sustainability, such as by watching these films Go to https://www.goingforgoldbristol.co.uk/films/ (opens new window) produced when Bristol achieved Gold Sustainable Food City status
Work with your local community
Supporting a shift towards healthier and more sustainable food requires greater public awareness of food system issues and widespread participation in food-related activity, by both individuals and organisations. This could include food growing projects, food waste recycling and composting, shopping locally and cooking from scratch.
You can:
- find out what community initiatives are active in your local area and what support they need
- invite local people to events at your business and promote the role, importance and joy of good food
- raise public awareness of healthy food and sustainable issues through your different communication channels
- serve food at local events to raise awareness of food initiatives championed by your business to attract customers
Page last reviewed: 4 October 2022
