1.2 million plant-based meals: less carbon and improved health

At NYC Health + Hospitals in the United States, Sodexo teams serve around 15,000 meals each day!

Plant-based dishes are the chef’s recommendation for lunch and dinner every single day.

As well as plant-based dishes being versatile, delicious and comforting, they also generate less carbon and eating them has huge health benefits. 

At Sodexo we’ve committed to offering 33% plant-based dishes in our menus by 2025. So, we were delighted when NYC Health + Hospitals asked our teams on site to introduce Meatless Mondays.

In March 2022 the team at NYC Health + Hospitals decided to expand on this success by offering a plant-based meal as the chef’s recommended dish every lunchtime. Later in the same year, plant-based meals became the primary option for all evening meals too. A plant-based dish is now offered as the automatic default dish to all patients.

All meals are made from scratch by our teams at the Culinary Center in Brooklyn. The culinary team members who take the patient food orders explain the flavor and nutrition of the day’s plant-based options and gather patient feedback about the meal. Each new recipe is piloted as chef’s recommendation and only enters the regular menu rotation if it achieves an 80% or above satisfaction rate.

36% reduction in carbon emissions

This small dietary shift has had a huge impact. As of May 2023, patient satisfaction remains above 90% and the overall uptake of plant-based meals for 2023 is 43%. 783,000 plant-based meals were served in 2023, the first full year of the program and up from 150,000 in 2022.

The initiative has also led to a massive 36% reduction in carbon year on year.

1.2 million plant-based meals and counting

2 years after the roll out of plant-based meals across every day of the week, NYC Health + Hospitals are celebrating having served 1.2 million plant-based meals. 
To mark the occasion our Chairwoman and CEO, Sophie Bellon, visited the Culinary Center in New York.