We’ll assess your cooking methods and the ingredients you use and suggest changes you can make in order that your food meets our requirements. The healthyliving award team are on hand every step of the way as you work towards achieving the award standards.The conditions and requirements we demand won’t come as a surprise – they are based on a healthy balanced diet and ways of encouraging people to eat healthily.

Firstly we look at ways of making all the food you offer more healthy – we’ll help if you need any advice.Then, using our guidance materials, you will create some healthier options – we call them healthyliving choices and mark them with our apple logo – giving your customers choices which are good for them.

If you want to find out more about the conditions of the award before you register, you can view a copy of the healthyliving award self-assessment questionnaire here.
The self-assessment questionnaire should help give you a broad overview of what is involved in the award. If you are interested in the award after reading the self-assessment questionnaire the first step is to register with the award.

Food hygiene requirements
When you register you will need to complete a consent form allowing the healthyliving award team to obtain details of your business's most recent food hygiene inspection report from your local authority environmental health service.

This pack includes important Guidance for Applicants. In it is all you need to know to achieve an award.

The assessment side of things has three stages

1. Self Assessment
The first stage of the process towards a healthyliving award needs you to fill in a self-assessment questionnaire which lists all the things you need to do to achieve an award. It’s important to tackle each of the conditions that are relevant to the food you serve before moving to the next stage.

Once you’ve made all the relevant changes you will be able to apply for an assessment visit.

2. Assessment visit
A trained award assessor will contact you to arrange a suitable time for a visit. The assessor will want to talk to whoever is in charge of food preparation, front of house and staff training.

The assessment visit has two parts

The walk round
The assessor will walk through the servery area and look at the food on offer and the way it is presented. They will look for the award logos on menus and at the counter. They might speak to your staff on the way to find out what they know about the healthyliving award.

Discussion with staff
The assessor will want to meet the members of staff in charge of preparing food as well as the management. For example, this might be the head chef and the catering manager. The assessor will want to discuss the award and make sure the conditions are being met. They will ask to look at some of the healthyliving recipes, but they’ll let you know which ones before the visit.

It won’t be possible to tell you if you have achieved an award until the assessor has completed his or her report and sent it to the healthyliving award team for the final part of the process.

3. Confirmation
Shortly after the visit you will be told whether you have achieved an award. If you are successful you will need to agree to the terms of award.

If, however, you are unsuccessful you will be given feedback which will include areas you need to improve on. You will be able to apply for another assessment visit when you feel you have made the relevant improvements.

This is what we're looking for:

Levels of fats and oils, particularly saturated fat, must be kept to a minimum.

Levels of salt must be kept to a minimum.

Levels of sugar must be kept to a minimum.

Fruit and vegetables must be clearly available.

Starchy foods must form the main part of most meals.

Where appropriate, healthy and nutritious children’s food should be provided.

At least 50 per cent of the food on the menu must be labelled as healthyliving choices.

Have a sales promotion and marketing strategy which works alongside the general principles of the healthyliving award and supports healthier eating.

As well as meeting these conditions which will involve making changes to the food you serve, you will have to promote the healthyliving choices to your customers. Information about exactly what this means is in the applicants’ guidance pack you will receive when you register.