Food Fit Meetings: Asking the Right Questions in All Directions from Fairmont Perspectives

Food Fit Meetings:
Asking the Right Questions in All Directions

When you take a meeting onsite, you can help your client get better results with strategies that also take care of participants’ health. The common denominator is a menu plan that goes all-in on nutritious, brain-friendly foods.We’ve all seen the onsite menus that are tailor-made to bring a meeting to a grinding halt. They’re high in fat. They’re loaded with sugar and starch, rather than protein or complex carbohydrates. The quantities are more than most of us would dream of consuming at home.And if they’re served at lunch, we know what will happen: by mid-afternoon, plummeting blood sugar levels collide with participants’ natural daily patterns of sleepiness and wakefulness. Their attention lags, their chins sag, and woe betide the organization that hoped to get anything done in the last couple of hours of the day.

No wonder so many speakers love to hate any time slot after 2 PM.

The good news is that there’s a solution in sight. Hotels are paying closer attention to participants’ dietary needs, adapting menus and training chefs to reflect healthier eating trends. That makes it easy for you to plan menus that surpass participants’ expectations, as long as you ask the right questions in the right places:

During site selection, ask your hotels whether they’re ready, willing, and able to prepare and serve individualized food and beverage options like Fairmont’sLifestyle Cuisine and Lifestyle Cuisine Plus menus.
Think about making healthy food choices a rated criterion in your hotel RFP.
You can also ask properties about local or organic food options, composting practices, or even whether they keep an onsite vegetable or herb garden. Not every property will offer every option, but knowing the basics will help you pick the features that matter most to your group.
From the moment registration opens, be sure to survey participants about any food allergies, dietary or customary restrictions, or preferences for brain-friendly foods.
With the hotel’s capabilities in mind, you can ask participants whether they would prefer a healthier, brain-friendly menu onsite. If a multiple-choice question gave them a choice between a 300- or 1,200-calorie lunch, how many do you think would choose the unhealthy option? (Whatever your guess, won’t it be great to start planning next year’s conference with this year’s data?)

By starting your menu planning early and asking the right questions, you can make your meeting more food-fit, for your participants and for yourself. Many people eat more under stress, or eat poorly, and if you’re running the event, your need for good nutrition will be at least as great as anyone else’s. So don’t just give yourself and your participants a break. With the right break (and breakfast, lunch, and dinner), you’ll be a giant step closer to a meeting that shines.

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Tell Us Your PlansDo you have a meeting or event coming up for which you could consider one of our hotels?We’d love to hear from you at 1-866-208-8609 orgsi@fairmont.com.

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