Putting Nutrition At The Forefront Of Dishes At Stadia

BaxterStorey operates across 800 locations in the UK, Ireland and across Europe, our skilled team of over 5,500 people never stop tasting, testing, and transforming. Inspired by creativity and entrepreneurial thinking, our teams create beautiful spaces and delicious menus BaxterStorey’s Graham Mutch, Head Chef at Aberdeen Football Club, discusses how they are using local produce and educating customers and teams on nutritionally balanced options.

The wellbeing and nourishment of our customers is a priority for many sectors, including our sporting locations and we believe that when putting nutrition first, it’s essential not to compromise on great taste. We are continuously elevating our offer by finding ways to innovate and inspire our teams to deliver exceptional food experiences like no other.

There has been a general rise in consumers deliberately making decisions that have a positive social, economic, and environmental impact. We’ve noticed that customers are more concerned with where food comes from, showing an increased desire for more mindful food choices. We are seeing a growing interest in the sustainable credentials of our fruit and vegetable ingredients, which is why working with suppliers who recognise, support, and value fresh, seasonal produce is vital.

From corporate hospitality to fan catering via kiosks, we offer a breadth of options at Aberdeen Football Club; all incorporating nutritious, sustainable, and local produce.

Within our hospitality offering, we’re seeing a trend towards customers making more nutritious choices. For one recent event, we created a vegetable terrine dish, using surplus seasonal veg supplied by Waste Knot, the dish was our most popular of the day, seeing over 400 orders. For next season, we are expanding our menus to introduce more diverse and flavourful dishes. From Thai curried chickpea and sweet potato with vegetable mixed rice, to more plant-based proteins including, flava beans and sweet potato falafel, beetroot salsa, golden beetroot and to British pumpkin and potato pie.

Younger fans in particular welcome this change. Our vegan hot dogs are popular with fans, and we have seen sales increase during the season. We continue to evolve our menu choices, based on positive feedback from customers. It’s important we give them informed choice with transparency on the sustainable and nutritious value of the dishes.

This trend extends across most of our stadia portfolio. At one of our grounds, we have vegan pizza being introduced this month, following steady sales of our vegan offers including pies. We have recently began working with our street food FUEL Experiences, with regular pop-ups from local food vendors. This has created a more premium food offer from gluten free pasta dishes to halloumi sausages for our customers, with an authentic food story supporting the local community behind each dish.

The recent surge in food shortage proves to an ongoing issue for the industry but we are giving chefs confidence and autonomy to be creative with their menus - building a community where we share craft to innovate and think outside the box. We proudly work with Waste Knot, which rescues surplus veg and sends straight to kitchens across the hospitality sector. A weekly delivery of seasonal produce has sparked a lot of creativity in our kitchen and more appreciation of the farm to fork journey. For example, if our menu has cauliflower soup and this runs out, we will use substitute vegetables that are in arms reach to reduce waste and utilise the fresh and local produce that we invest in.

We’re passionate about grasping the opportunities to connect and educate our customers to prioritises health and wellness; and create a food culture that is fuelled by chefs inspired, educated, and motivated to make change.