New And Expanded FitPicks Gives Café Services Diners More Healthy Choices In The New Year

The New Year is a popular time to kick off healthy eating habits. The office is a great place to start, if you’re lucky enough to be a Café Services customer.

On January 1, the corporate dining company serving Massachusetts and the greater northeast launched the new and expanded FitPicks,™ a wellness program offering tasty food choices to help diners moderate their fat, calories and sodium intake. Developed by Café Services registered dietitians with input from the company’s professional chefs and corporate dining customers, FitPicks follows recommendations provided in the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Choose a FitPicks Option Every Day

Barely one month after launch, most of Café Services’ 40 corporate dining company locations are participating in FitPicks. Says Café Services Corporate Dietitian, Rebecca Cunningham: “Café Services has always offered nutritious foods to our customers. Our new FitPicks wellness initiative expands these choices and ensures that healthy options are available every day of the week. Just look for the apple logo that identifies our FitPicks selections.”

At the entrée station, FitPicks choices include tasty meals such as Grilled Salmon over Spring Greens or Pork Adobo with Kale Fried Rice and Roasted Tomatoes. All are 650 calories or less and meet set standards for fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. Nutrition information is posted.

FitPicks is also offered at the deli and grill, where diners can choose from a fresh selection of deli and grill items like the Chicken Fit, Turkey Avocado on Wheat, and for heartier appetites, a Portobello Philly Cheesesteak. FitPicks deli and grill selections contain 450 calories or less, and like the entrees, meet set standards for fat, saturated fat and sodium.

Diners that like soup with their sandwich will find a variety of FitPicks choices. As always, valuable nutrition information is posted. For snack time, FitPicks offers delicious choices with 200 calories or less including fresh fruit cup, Greek yogurt parfait and a made-from-scratch wholegrain cookie.

More Ways to Eat Healthy

Choosing a FitPicks meal is not the only way to eat healthy at work. Café Services always has on hand a smorgasbord of healthy food selections to give diners the flexibility to make any meal more nutritious. Like fresh vegetables at the salad bar, Thin &Trim lower sodium meats at the deli and low-fat condiments at every station. Heart-healthy oils and vegetarian options are staples.

Cafe Services will also prepare many foods on demand so customers can eat healthy their own way—whether it’s topping a sandwich with an unbuttered bun or choosing a low fat dressing at the salad bar.

Chef Satisfaction Vital To FitPicks

Café Services chefs are the best in the business. And their input on recipes and diners’ tastes is vital to the dietitians that create the FitPicks recipe database. Ensuring that the database is easy for chefs to use and includes recipes they enjoy preparing is a top priority.

Says Rebecca, “The FitPicks database makes it easy for chefs to pick and choose recipes based on diner favorites and local ingredients. Thanks to their feedback, we’re able to constantly refine recipes and build a database that matches the food interests of Café Services diners.”

I’ve been born and bred corporate dining and corporate catering from the very beginning of my career in the Silicon Valley and now, since 2001 in the Boston Metro Area. While working my way up through the ranks, all the experience has led up to my current position as the Corporate Executive Chef for Café Services, based out of Manchester, NH. I have the privilege to be able to utilize creativity, research and technology to dream up our company’s new culinary programs and custom menus for corporate cafeteria clients and bring them to life. Café Services supplies the resources to ensure success of our ever-evolving companywide culinary initiatives and I’m very grateful for the opportunity. Seeing the success of new programs in the field is my motivation. It’s a win win.