At Elior, innovation is part of the DNA of our teams and is essentially participatory. We innovate on a daily basis and at all levels of the company to meet the expectations of our guests and better satisfy them.
Innovation is
accessible to all
To step up innovation, Elior has deployed an innovation management platform: Life4. This innovation platform is accessible to all and brings together the Group's innovations in France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States and Spain.
All employees, in our 20,250 restaurants and points of sale, can discover innovation projects that are being created or have already been deployed, and contact a colleague with similar customer- expectation concerns. Making information accessible and promoting contacts, as well as encouraging employees to share their success stories and best practices are key accelerator factors.
Innovation Awards
Every year, our internal Innovation Awards competition rewards our most innovative employees. For example, we have rewarded projects in areas that are important to our customers and our employees, namely: CSR, nutrition, operations, safety, services, new offers. This is also an opportunity to involve our employees who vote for the public award. In 2021, 5,000 employees voted for the public award.
Three innovations awarded in 2021
Nutrition and Culinary Innovation (USA)
Healthy at Home offers patients personalized catering services during their stay in hospital and when they return home, so as to reduce the rate of readmission into acute care.
Services (France)
The Effi See application is a scalable tool that provides the traceability and management of our customers' premises in real time, and enables them to add many other functions according to their needs.
Sustainable development (UK)
The Eco points loyalty scheme project promotes responsible consumption among guests. Those who choose dishes with a low carbon impact earn loyalty points. For every 10 points earned, one tree is planted.
Italy and France: places dedicated to innovation
The cuisine of the future is being invented in laboratories where recipes are created and chefs are trained.
In Italy, the Food Academy is where we invent the catering models of the future; models that are flexible, sustainable, chosen by the customer and reproductible.
In France, we have the LAB, whose purpose is to support Elior’s teams in inventing and implementing culinary and technological innovation projects for the benefit of all the Group’s guests. This is a place for experimentation, co-creation, discovery, learning and foresight. It makes it possible to develop new concepts and services, and to make the various internal players aware of new culinary techniques, new flavors, new materials, etc. It also serves as a venue for meetings and privileged discussions with customers and prospects.
"The LAB is our innovation lab where we test our new recipes and new products. Several times a year, we invite Elior chefs to visit and organize creativity days based on recipes. We also receive suppliers who show us their new products. It is a place of culinary exchange with our chefs and our suppliers, as well as our customers."
— Charlotte Forest
Culinary innovation manager for Elior France's health market
