APETITO Better food, better life

By Foylan Rhodes

The Lost Executive looks at the United Kingdom food and catering business Apetito, a wellestablished brand who’s specifically created and frozen meals have changed the lives of millions of people in British schools, care homes and hospitals.

Founded by Karl Düsterberg in 1958 in Rheine, Germany as “Apetito Ready Meals” producing frozen ready meals for retail and business canteens, schools, nurseries and the service of Meals on Wheels in German. Now firmly settled in the UK, Apetito is set on offering these sectors better nutritional and flavoursome food options with the belief that food should be enjoyed by everyone.

And, by providing exceptional meals to organisations catering to the young and the elderly with meals that are expertly crafted by their inhouse dietitian and chefs, and frozen to retain their taste and goodness, they have considerable raised the standards of hospital meals, care home meals, nursery meals and school meals to a completely different level.

He elaborates that they operate a positive release system, they’ll test a product prior to any release for any bacteria that may be present before any food is released to be sold. So, consumers can be 100% confident that their food is safe. They test over 120,000 batches of food per year and test every batch they produce and of those samples ⅔ of them will look specifically at pathogens. All the testing is also accredited by the Camden Laboratory Credidation Service. Campden BRI Ad.

Laboratory First Kitchen Second

Food safety is the company’s number one priority because, as Apetito’s group technical manager Ian Mortimer says, “Our customers need to know the food they eat is safe. Thanks to our accredited safety and traceability process, we know this is the case every time.

”We recognise that our consumers are vulnerable, so it’s important to us that when they eat, they can enjoy their food because it’s great quality and its as safe as it possibly can be.”

“We also go further to take a bacteriological map of the location, swabbing floors, walls, matts, working areas where a pathogen carrying bacteria contamination is going to come from and instead of curing a problem they would rather prevent it from happening in the first place.” he says.

Once cooked, their positive release policy means a sample is taken from each batch of food, analysed in our three laboratories, before being released for sale once confirmed safe. We are also able to assure nutritional levels are kept.

“We’re the only caterer to the health and social care sector that has microbiological, chemical and allergen laboratories onsite,” Ian says, “All of which are independently compliant by the Campden Laboratory Accreditation Scheme.”

Ceo Stepping Down

Paul Freeston has announced that after 25 years of service at meals provider Apetito he will be stepping down at the end of the year (December 2024).

Under Paul’s leadership, Apetito UK and its Wiltshire Farm Foods home delivery business has grown from £30m to £250m in the UK, whilst increasing its team from 400 to almost 2,000. He also led the Apetito Group into Canada and USA and has been a member of the International Group Board since 2007.

Paul said: “My passion for our business and belief in its future potential to grow and make a real difference is undiminished. I have loved every moment. However, at the end of 2024, it will be time to pass the baton on as I am looking to investing my energies into new business opportunities and challenges.

Now employing just under 2,000 people across the UK, Apetito is the ‘UK’s leading meals producer into the Healthcare and Care Home markets’ with a recently launched Education division.

Robert Düsterberg, deputy chairman of the Apetito Group, added: “Paul has grown our business with unparalleled passion and dedication and been the driving force behind the success of Apetito UK, transforming challenges into opportunities and always having a clear vision of the direction the company needed to go.

“His unwavering commitment and visionary leadership have shaped Apetito UK and led the

Group into North America. We want to express our deepest gratitude for these exceptional achievements. With Paul stepping down, we will prepare for the next phase of growth and work on the succession plan is underway.”

He has instigated a number of important developments with the company, for example when Apetito were given King’s Award for recycling initiative earlier this year. For their work catering to the Health, Social Care, Care Homes and Education Sectors, Apetito has been awarded the King’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development.

Previously the company has secured three Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, two for Innovation in 2005 and 2016, and one for Sustainable Development in 2019.

This year’s accolade is bestowed upon 252 organisations nationwide, with 29 businesses acknowledged for their contributions to sustainable development.

Apetito received the accolade for its work on ‘Project Boomerang’- a sustainability initiative launched through Wiltshire Farm Foods. This project focuses on implementing closed-loop recycling systems for plastic meal trays on an industrial scale, particularly targeting ready-meal deliveries to the homes of the elderly and vulnerable.

Paul Freeston, CEO and chair of Apetito UK and North America, said: “We are proud, honoured and delighted to have been recognised in The King’s Awards for Enterprise in Sustainable Development 2024. It epitomises the collective hard work, dedication and vision of our entire team.

“All of us at Apetito are passionate about making a real difference to people’s lives and we believe our commitment to sustainable development reflects this. Sustainability informs not just the way we work, but how we treat people, the impact on the environment and our contribution to the economy. Leading from the top, we’ve worked to embed this belief into the fabric of the whole business. Put simply, we believe it’s the right way to do business.”

Further Recycling Expansions

As a company dedicated to doing business in a sustainable way and reaching its goal of Net Zero by 2040, leading care homes meal provider, Apetito expands its pioneering closed-loop recycling system for meal trays into care homes across the UK.

Following highly successful results within its consumer business, Wiltshire Farm Foods, and within the NHS, the world-first “Project Boomerang” will soon be operating at select partnering homes with plans to extend further across Apetito’s customers later this year.

Lee Sheppard, Director of Corporate Affairs, Policy and Sustainability at Apetito is proud of the significant success seen from this scheme across its Consumer and Healthcare businesses and sees a real opportunity to support partnering homes to reduce their carbon footprint.

Recycling Trays

Through this scheme, all the plastic meal trays used in Apetito’s Specialist Nutrition range can be washed and returned after use and recycled into brand-new trays – right here in the UK. The recycling system guarantees that 100% of trays returned will be recycled into new trays – compare that to UK household recycling where due to the lack of infrastructure nearly 50% ends up being sent abroad for recycling – with uncertain results.

Participation in the initiative is set to save each care home an estimated 113kg CO2e per year*, supporting partnering homes to bring down their carbon emissions and minimise their impacts on the environment, as well as reducing waste costs.

“To date, we have seen brilliant results and had positive receptions of this scheme from both our Wiltshire Farm Foods and Healthcare customers and have collected back an over 25 million trays to be recycled.

“Reducing environmental impacts is becoming a growing priority for all businesses, and so we’re pleased to be able to work closely with our partnering care homes to help tackle their carbon emissions and provide a more sustainable packaging option through our closed-loop recycling scheme.

“Participation also has the potential to drive cost efficiencies for care homes through reducing waste collection costs, at a time when cost inflation is a real concern for the sector.”

Images Courtesy of apetito.com