This article was produced by Leela’s Lunches for TASS

We did the most ridiculous thing a catering company could do – we removed our number 1 seller from the menu!

Like many well-intentioned small businesses, we at Leela’s Lunches have always prioritized sustainability as a key initiative. Before attending TASS’s Sustainable School Food Summit at COP28 in December 2023, we believed that supporting local suppliers was the best way to minimize our carbon footprint. However, we emerged from the conference with a more nuanced and dynamic understanding of how we can effectively contribute to sustainability.

As a result, we partnered with Klimato – a UK-based agency and one of TASS’s partners at the conference that evaluates recipes based on their environmental impact, considering the provenance and type of ingredients used, as well as the preparation process. We began the long and arduous task of collating and inputting all our recipes (over 1,000!) into their system, and receiving feedback on each one. Then came the real challenge: we discovered that our top-selling sandwich, the Turkey Cheese Croissant—that throngs of children and teachers ordered as their breakfast staple every day—received a grade ‘D’ on the Klimato scale. This posed a true test for us. It’s easy for a business to claim sustainability as a goal and to attend conferences, but what should we do when, as often happens, sustainability comes at the cost of profit?

At Leela’s Lunches, we have always held ourselves to a higher standard of quality, efficiency, health, and nutrition. But does that extend to our sustainability goals, too? We decided that it should. Rather than focusing on other poorly-graded dishes that are less popular, we recognized that removing this one sandwich would be the most efficient and impactful way to improve our average score and reduce our carbon footprint.

So, we made a bold decision: we removed our number one seller from the menu.

In the first few weeks, our teams on site were inundated with complaints from children, parents and teachers who wanted to know when their favorite breakfast item would return. To address this, we introduced alternative breakfast options and offered tastings in the canteens to generate excitement. Our main goal was to drive positive behavior change, and we explained to our customers why the sandwich had to go. Sustainability is a key message taught at all our partner schools, so children and teachers were already familiar with this goal. Children appreciated being brought in as a stakeholder and offered the chance to put their money towards a more sustainable offering. However, several adults were not as understanding – we were reprimanded for making a ‘bad business decision’ and warned that we would come to regret it.

As the days passed, our customers began choosing the more climate-friendly sandwiches we offered. And guess what, our breakfast sales didn’t take a nosedive as we feared, our targets were maintained! While our new breakfast offerings aren’t as individually successful as the old sandwich yet, our overall sales maintain a positive trajectory.

Moving forward, any new recipes we create will include sustainability as a key parameter in their evaluation. We will only introduce dishes that help maintain or improve our climate score. Our menu place cards will also feature a Klimato score, empowering customers to make informed choices. By selecting more eco-friendly products, customers will have the power to positively influence our menu’s offerings.