crunch time for the evening meal

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CRUNCH TIME FORTHE EVENING MEAL

COMPASS GROUP UK & IRELAND LIMITEDPARKVIEW82 OXFORD ROADUXBRIDGEMIDDLESEX UB8 1UX

FROM FORMAL DINNER TO GRAB-AND-GO, OUR EATING HABITS ARE A MOVEABLE FEAST.

A EUREST WHITE PAPERFEBRUARY 2013



Monday is a salad and a smoothie at your desk while

you catch up on emails; Tuesday a bowl of soup with

a colleague for an informal meeting; Wednesday’s

a late dash to the workplace café for a sandwich;

Thursday a cold buffet during a brainstorming

huddle; Friday is sh and chips.

The nation’s eating habits have transformed over

the past 100 years — reecting multiple inuences

on our lives both at work and home that affect

how, when and what we choose to eat. While some

commentators highlight the negative aspects of such

shifts, the reality suggests that what was considered

the norm 50 years ago was also the product of recent

economic, political inuences and the effects weren’t

necessarily negative — wartime eating and rationing

actually improved the nation’s health (Medical News

Today, 2004).

While some of our modern habits could be improved,

such as over-consumption of fast food, there is also

much to celebrate as we choose exibility over

formality, fresh over processed, crunch over stodge,

frequency over a single heavy meal — not to mention

the colour and contrast of different cultural cuisines

and a much broader brush when it comes to

food groups.

If a big evening meal is a casualty of these new

habits, the opportunities to enjoy daytime mealshave never been more varied and interesting.

Dinner hasn’t gone, it has merely evolved into a

lighter, fresher smorgasbord — a kind of foodie

pick and mix.

INTRODUCTION





A brief gallop through history shows that one

main meal was generally the norm; it’s when this

meal was eaten that has shifted (and continues to

shift). Eating the main meal in the middle of the day

was a product of industrialisation — not only did

workers need a substantial meal to have the energy

to do the work they had to do, but industrialisation

also reduced the power daylight had to dictate when

meals were taken.

THE RISE OF LUNCH — FROM SNACK TO MEAL.

As early as the Middle Ages people ate something in

the middle of the day, although lunch as we know it

didn’t exist — not even the word.

Daylight shaped mealtimes. With no electricity,

people got up earlier to make use of daylight.

Workers often toiled in the elds from daybreak,

so by midday they were hungry, often havingworked for up to six hours. They would take a quick

break and eat what was known as a “beever” or

“noonshine”, usually bread and cheese. But their

main meal would take place at nightfall, the end of

the working day (Winterman, 2012).

As late as 1755 in his A Dictionary of English

Language, Samuel Johnson dened lunch as “as

much food as one’s hand can hold” (Twilley 2012),

suggesting it comes from the word clutch or clunch,

it remained very much a snack to tide the individualover until the main meal of dinner.

It was the Industrial Revolution that helped shape

lunch as we know it today. Middle and lower class

eating patterns were dened by working hours. Many

worked long hours in factories, away from home,

and to sustain them a noon-time meal was essential.

So lunch, a former snack, became the day’s third

xed meal as society urbanised and industrialised

and workers were unable to return home for dinner

until late at night.

The ritual of eating lunch became ingrained in the

much more rigid daily routine of industrialisation

with factories formalising the midday food break.

FUELLING THE INDUSTRIAL AGE

By the 19th Century chop houses appeared in cities,

and ofce workers were given an hour for lunch.

And, as more and more people worked away from

home — keeping ‘ofce hours’ that went beyond

daylight hours thanks to the provision of gas to main

towns and cities — they weren’t free to dine until

later in the evening. This widened the gap between

breakfast and dinner, helping lunch to become a

fully-edged meal rmly positioned in the middle of

the day (Living History Today, 2012).

LUNCH AS A BOUGHT MEAL.

Thanks to industrialisation it was a small step from

bringing a handful of bread and cheese from home to

buying a pie from a stall outside the factory. Soon, all

sorts of eating places were catering for the growing

town and city lunch market.

Pubs and the ‘pie and a pint’ option evolvedalongside the British café with the dening factor

being speed, so the worker could get there, eat

and get back to work — all within an hour. Eating

places sprang up in working districts to service the

lunchtime market.

Lunch evolved further with the outbreak of the

Second World War in 1939 (Winterman, 2012).

Rationing took hold and work-based canteens

became the most economical way to feed the

masses. (In fact, interestingly, it was this model thatwas adopted by schools after the war.)

And then fast food as we know it today entered the

marketplace; the traditional Lyons Corner House

restaurants branched out with a special fast-food

serving section in 1954 that developed into separate

Wimpy restaurants serving only hamburger-based

meals (Wimpy, n.d.).

Today there’s a wide range of lunchtime choice for

the worker, from the coffee chains to sandwich bars,fast food chains, quick lunches from restaurants and

grab-and-go supermarket sandwich deals. The pub

still remains an option, but a static one; food sales

have remained steady since the introduction of the

smoking ban (Flavour magazine, 2012).



Historically a household eating together came about

through necessity; one main meal a day was all that

there was and you joined in or missed out on the

bulk of that day’s nourishment. Industrialisation

broke that rigid pattern; when someone ate was

dictated much more by their working situation.

Today much is made of the value of a shared

household meal, but in practice it’s a relatively new

phenomenon, vulnerable to other pressures — both

economic and social.

During the day, the landscape of modern work has

changed too. Apart from the fact that many people

prefer to eat lunch at their desks while they work,

the rise of the internet and social media mean many

of us opt to surf while we eat or use our half-hour

break to catch up on our social life — so we’ll log

on to Facebook or Twitter for a chat with friendsinstead of meeting them for lunch. Other variables

are the growth of home-working and hot-desking,

and the proliferation of the call centre. We eat in

ways that t our work and lifestyles and it’s a fast-

changing picture — but we know we’ll adapt and t a

meal in somewhere. Cooking for ourselves however

is a different matter.

THE SHRINKING DINNER.

There may be 24 hours in the day, but we’re

increasingly spending fewer of them making time

for dinner.

The typical British worker now spends just 11

minutes eating their evening meal (McDermott 2012);

in fact the clearing up afterwards takes longer.

And in this technologically-dominated age we’d

rather invest our time in pursuing our individual

interests than set aside time to prepare an evening

meal for sharing. A quarter of adults surveyed

admitted they would rather eat in front of the

television than sitting at a table with their partner.

In fact our hectic lives means one in ten of us eat

separately every night of the week, because we all

get home at completely different times (McDermott

2012).

A SHIFT TO EATING WHEN AND WHERE IS CONVENIENT

FOR THE INDIVIDUAL.

Time pressures and lifestyle choices make eating on

the go an increasing inuence on eating and meal

time decisions.

Without the connes of xed meal times (in the

working day or in the evening) and because of the

pressures created by long working hours and busier

lifestyles, on-the-go, anytime eating is increasing.

Almost half of UK residents now eat on the goand allow themselves a mere 20 minutes for

lunch (Totally Living 2012) while 43 per cent skip

traditional meal times and eat on the run.

Other pressures have forced one in three (37 per

cent) to combine breakfast and lunch into a quick

brunch, while a fth (18 per cent) choose to snack

ve times or more throughout the day and skip their

main evening meal.

Just over half of all adult snacking (51 per cent) isdone alone, with the top three adult alone-eating

occasions including the instrumental afternoon

snack, instrumental breakfast and instrumental

lunch — where ‘instrumental’ reects a way of eating

to get things done (Sung 2012).

THE RISE OF INDIVIDUAL FOOD PREFERENCES.

As dietary preferences increase and grow more

complex the chances that a group of individuals

can enjoy the same meal decreases. Children,

particularly pre-teen children, are more likely to holddietary preferences that are given more credence

today, and the increased presence of dietary

restrictions (food sensitivities, allergies and forms of

vegetarianism) make it much harder to nd one meal

to suit all (The Hartman Group 2004).

WORK RULES THE ROOST

DINNER — A (RE)HEATED DEBATE





THE RISE OF 24 HOUR FOOD AVAILABILITY.

Round the clock opening hours mean food is now so

easily available there’s no need to plan meals ahead,

a factor that changes the status of the evening meal

as a thought-out, planned event. If the ingredients for

the evening meal aren’t ready in the fridge and store

cupboard, then dinner can be moved or replaced

without compunction.

SNACK TO THE FUTURE.

Consumers are increasingly turning to snacking to

bridge the gap between meals due to long work and

commute times (The Hartman Group 2012).

As eating becomes something that’s a mechanical

function, or an opportunity for instant gratication,

snacking is coming into its own.

Snacking is less about types of food anymore, butabout how food is consumed. The move towards

healthier snacking such as seeds, nuts and fruit

counteracts the prevailing idea that snacking gets in

the way of ‘proper’ meals and is bad for us.

LITTLE AND OFTEN.

Consumers increasingly believe that eating smaller

meals more frequently is healthier (The Hartman

Group 2012).

Increased awareness of the importance of getting your ve a day and the benets of keeping blood

sugar and energy levels steady reinforce the idea that

regular, healthy snacking is a good way of eating.

And on the other side of this coin, eating one large

meal later in the day is increasingly believed to be an

inefcient and unhealthy way of doing things.

‘Healthy’ small meals or snacks instead of eating

what’s thought of as a ‘meal’ is a way for consumers

to feel they’re eating less, controlling their portions

and cutting their calorie intake. Consumers alsobelieve that by distributing small treat moments

throughout the day via snacking they’re helping to

avoid over-indulgent binges and that balance can be

achieved by rotating indulgent and non-indulgent

(Sung 2012).

CONCLUSION.

We’ve come a long way — but nothing ever stays

still when it comes to our eating habits. Who knows

what our meal times will look like in 100 years’ time,

or even if such a thing will exist at all? Perhaps

it’s time to accept the cultural shift away from big,

formal meals and embrace eating occasions that are

benecial to all. These changing cultural behaviours

offer potential for light eating in working hours to

accommodate more of the day’s consumption.



Medical News Today (2004) ‘Wartime Rationing helped the

British get healthier than they had ever been’ 21 Jun 2004

[online] http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/9728.

php (accessed 10 January 2013)

Flavour magazine (2012) ‘How the smoking ban affected

pubs and clubs’, Flavour magazine, [online] http://www.

avourmagazine.co.uk/features/pubs-and-clubs.php

(accessed 2 December 2012).

Hartman Group (2004) ‘What’s for dinner? Understanding

meal fragmentation as a cultural phenomenon’, Hartbeat,

11 November 2004 [online] http://www.hartman-group.com/

hartbeat/what-for-dinner-understanding-meal-fragmentation-

as-a-cultural-phenomenon (accessed 22 November 2012).

Levy, A. (2012) ‘How the family meal has split into two’, The

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co.uk/femail/article-1308067/Death-family-meal-One-mothers-

cook-different-dinners-children-themselves.html (accessed

11 November 2012).

Living History Today (2012) ‘Is this lunch or dinner?’ Living

History Today, 17 October 2012 [online], http://www.

livinghistorytoday.com/?p=399, (accessed 1 December 2012).

McDermott, K. (2012) ‘Now that’s fast food’, The Daily Mail,

25 October 2012 [online] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/

article-2223057/Busy-Britons-wolf-evening-meal-just-11-

minutes--spend-15-minutes-washing-up.html (accessed 15

November 2012).

Mintel Inc. (2010) ‘Business and Industry Catering’, Mintel

research, Oct 2010 [online] (accessed 1 December).

REFERENCES

EUREST, FEBRUARY 2013.

To fnd out more about Eurest, part o Compass Group, a world-leading providero oodservice and support services, please visit www.eurestood.co.uk


Spicer, H (2010) ‘Sandwiches and lunchtime foods’, Mintel

research, May 2011 [online] (accessed 1 December).

Sung, A (2012) ‘Healthy eating and social snacking as an

obesity solution’, Hartbeat, 4 October 2012 [online] http://

www.hartman-group.com/hartbeat/healthy-snacking-and-

social-eating-as-an-obesity-solution (accessed 9 December

2012).

Totally Living (2012) ‘Lunchtime is just 20 minutes for most

Brits’, Totally Living, 26 September 2012 [online] http://www.

totallyliving.co.uk/food/2012/09/26/lunch-time-is-just-20-

minutes-for-most-brits (accessed 18 November 2012).

Twilley, N (2012), ‘Lunch: an urban invention’, Edible

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ediblegeography.com/lunch-an-urban-invention/, (accessed 5

December 2012).

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history.asp (accessed 10 December 2012).

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always eaten them?’, BBC News, 15 November 2012 [online],

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