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The Healthy Choices Healthy Futures (HCHF) program offers advice, support and recommendations, on their workplace food environments.

The first step in supporting a workplace is constructing a workplace profile. In meeting with a new workplace, it is essential to establish a workplace profile to provide the HCHF team a good understanding of the type of workplace that they will be engaged with to ensure realistic, achievable recommendations are provided. A workplace profile is usually created by the HCHF team in collaboration with the workplace though a face-to-face meeting, by telephone or an online form.
Each of these environments has the potential to be influenced by workplace management. The HCHF team of dietitians and nutritionists can provide support and advice to comprehensively review each of these food environments.
Catering menus can be emailed, posted or uploaded to the HCHF website for a team member to review. The following environmental influences are explored:
- what types of events are catered?
- is a regular caterer used?
- what the types of items that are regularly ordered?
- are there already standard healthy catering practices in place?
- management support for healthy catering reform
- workers’ interest and support for healthier catering items.
A HCHF team member will usually visit the onsite food outlet to photograph the food and drink on offer. The following environmental influences are explored:
- the type, capacity and layout of the outlet
- any existing healthy eating or labelling programs in operation
- menu cycle and the timeline for review
- the nature of the workforce accessing the outlet
- promotion and marketing strategies used in the outlet
- management support for healthy reform in the cafe/canteen/kiosk
- food service staff willingness and motivation to include healthier alternatives workers’ interest and support for healthy change.
As per the process for reviewing onsite food outlets; vending machine assessments usually involves taking a series of photographs of both the vending machine/s exterior and the products contained within. For remote or regional sites, photographs of the vending machines can be emailed, posted or uploaded to the HCHF website for review. The following environmental influences are explored:
- the number and type of vending machines on site
- existing contractual requirements with the vending machine supplier/s
- understand if there have been any previous efforts for healthier alternatives
- management support for healthy vending machine reform
- workers’ interest and support for healthier vending machine items.
In addition, HCHF looks specifically at the food and drink items available. The HCHF team will:
- review all food and drink items for each food environment
- for an onsite outlet, the review assesses all food and drink categories (e.g. breakfast, hot meals, salad bar, desserts, drinks)
- recipe analysis can also be provided for an onsite outlet if recipes are provided to HCHF
- within the catering assessment, depending on the workplace’s preference, the entire catering menu or a specific list of items will be assessed
- each menu item is then coded as ‘green’, ‘amber’ or ‘red’ based on a ‘traffic light’ system of classifying food and drink
Regardless of the food environment that has been reviewed, the workplace will receive a report containing practical feedback and recommendations.
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49% of the Australian working population has an
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