Yahoo Finance Office canteens swap chicken for turkey as food prices soar
Chicken sandwiches are being swapped for turkey as spiralling food prices hit lunchtime offerings in canteens.
Catering giant Compass, which provides food for offices and schools, said chefs are switching to cheaper proteins to avoid some of the steepest price rises as Britain struggles with the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.
Chief executive Dominic Blakemore said its catering teams were much more able to swap out items when coming up against cost increases compared to high street restaurants, which have to adhere to fixed menus.
"If red meat prices are particularly high, we can introduce salmon, or if chicken prices are high, we can vary to turkey, so we're swapping out proteins to get the best cost for our clients," he said. "It's the same with oils, so we can switch to different or cheaper cooking oils to avoid the highest inflation oils."
Shredded chicken ramen, for example, is being switched off menus in office canteens for duck, Compass said. On some menus, whereas Compass previously offered two meat options, it would now be offering one.
Across most of its business, which sees it supply more than 2,000 schools, universities and academies in the UK as well as businesses, melon has also been taken off menus, driven by the recent spike in its price as well as its high carbon footprint.
Businesses are looking for switches on chicken - or ways to use cheaper parts of the bird - after Co-op earlier this month warned that chicken risked soon becoming as expensive as beef, with prices "rising quicker than any other protein". Over the past year, chicken prices have increased by almost 12pc. At both Tesco and Sainsburys, customers are able to buy diced turkey breast for less than the same amount of chicken.
Richard Griffiths, head of the British Poultry Council, said both producers of turkey and chicken would have seen their costs increase by around 15 per cent in recent months, as feed and labour costs go through the roof.
However, he said supermarket demand for chicken was high which may mean "there's more turkey available in food service, hence it being more affordable".
Mr Blakemore said Compass was seeing costs increase for all ingredients, but that it was "about mitigation rather than fully offsetting the costs". Beef prices, for example, have been affected by a cattle shortage, as well as a lack of butchers which forced many to send their carcasses to the EU for processing late last year.
The switches come as more companies look to start offering free lunches to workers, in an attempt to get more staff back at a time when the cost-of-living crisis is hitting household budgets.
Compass provides catering for businesses, which can either choose to subsidise those meals for workers or to offer it for free. It also offers catering for schools and public service bodies.
Mr Blakemore said more executives were starting to turn to catering as an "enticement" for staff to come back into the office, as businesses attempt to wean staff off remote working. Some have turned to less traditional perks to get workers into city centres, including offering private screenings of new films. However, Mr Blakemore said: "For those people who are watching the pennies, we'll be an attraction to stay in the office."
Compass has increased its prices for its clients by between 4pc and 5pc globally in the first half, but said prices were still lower than restaurants: "We should always be cheaper than the high streets," Mr Blakemore said. "And if the high street prices are going up, then we're going up less than the high street."
