Healthy Choices frequently asked questions

The Victorian Government has developed the Healthy Choices guidelines to support the provision and promotion of healthy foods and drinks in places like hospitals and health services, workplaces, universities and sports and recreation facilities. The guidelines aim to promote healthy foods and drinks in retail outlets, vending machines and catering. They use a traffic light system to classify foods and drinks as GREEN (best choices), AMBER (choose carefully) or RED (limit).

The guidelines recommend that retail outlets and vending machines provide at least 50% GREEN items and less than 20% RED options. The guidelines also recommend that catering provided to staff in an organisation should only be GREEN or AMBER foods and drinks.

For more information on the targets refer to the Healthy Choices guidelines overview.

NB: if you’re a public health service refer to the Healthy choices: policy directive for Victorian public health services for information on relevant requirements and targets for GREEN, AMBER and RED foods and drinks.

Your organisation can make a big difference when it comes to healthy eating!

Whether you are a smaller organisation providing catering at meetings and events, or a larger organisation with vending machines or even a retail outlet, you can help staff and visitors to be healthier and happier.

By offering foods and drinks that follow the Healthy Choices guidelines, you can help improve wellbeing for your staff and visitors and promote your organisation as a healthy eating leader in your industry.

The following are some reasons to implement the Healthy Choices guidelines in your organisation:

For sport and recreation centres

Healthy eating is just as important as physical activity in creating a healthy lifestyle.

Supplying healthier foods and drinks in food outlets, vending machines and catering in your sport and recreation centre provides a consistent message about healthy lifestyles to the children and adults that visit your centre.

It can also attract more visitors by creating a family-friendly environment and have the potential to increase revenue due to health conscious visitors purchasing healthier choices.

For all workplaces

Healthy employees are productive employees, and the foods and drinks that your staff consume each day affect their energy levels, mood and concentration, not to mention their long term health.

Supplying healthier foods and drinks through catering, vending machines and on site food outlets will ensure your staff and visitors have access to nutritious options that support optimal performance and overall health.

It can also contribute to:

• staff being more productive and satisfied in their work
• less stress and anxiety in the workplace
• staff having fewer ‘absent’ or sick days.

The Healthy Eating Advisory Service is a government funded service delivered by Nutrition Australia Vic Division that supports organisations to provide and promote healthier foods and drinks through catering, retail food outlets and vending.

We can support you through the following free services: (Link the following to the relevant pages)

• Informative resources – Practical information including recipes, food and drink ideas, case studies and how-to-guides
• Instant food and drink assessments – Access our Australian-first online menu assessment tool, FoodChecker
• Online training – Training modules to support you in providing and promoting healthier food and drinks
• Infoline and email advice – Speak to our dedicated nutritionists and dietitians

Or contact us for more information about how we can help you.

Getting your organisation’s management on board with Healthy Choices is important as they can help to lead and advocate for healthy eating and make changes at a policy level. Without management support it can be difficult to create sustained change. Some ideas to ensure your leadership team is supportive are:

• Complete our online module, ‘Getting management on board’ to learn about putting together a business case to gain support from your management team.
• Undertake a brief baseline assessment of some or all of your retail, vending and catering facilities and compare these to the Healthy Choices guidelines – even just the drink display. This data can be presented to your executive to show how you compare to other organisations. Our counting guide can help you understand how to count food and drink items when doing a retail outlet menu assessment.
• Refer to the work done by Alfred Health. Their online case study shows how they removed sugar sweetened beverages (classified RED) from view yet their sales remained steady, and the purchasing of GREEN and AMBER drinks increased. Their infographic can be particularly helpful.
• Refer to the Healthy Eating Advisory Service website for more case studies.

Have a look at some of our webpages for ideas of healthier food or drink options and how to source them:

• Simple changes for healthier catering
• Simple changes for healthier foods and drinks
• Healthy vending plan-o-grams

Or contact us for more assistance.

There are many ways to promote the excellent work you’re doing by working towards the Healthy Choices guidelines.

• Give staff an opportunity to be involved in the change. They may be able to lead some elements through the Staff Health and Wellbeing Committee
• Use your organisation’s social media platforms to make announcements and provide updates.
• Write an article or a news alert explaining what you’re doing. You could also include it in the staff daily bulletin where relevant.

The Health Star Rating is a federal government supported labelling system on packaged food and drinks to help consumers choose healthier versions of similar packaged products. For example, to compare one breakfast cereal with another, or one muesli bar with another.

The Health Star Rating does not replace the Victorian government traffic light system used in the Healthy Choices guidelines. The Healthy Choices guidelines are a broader resource that take into account not only packaged products, but all five core food groups, fresh foods, portion sizes, and display and promotion.

Visit the Healthy Choices guidelines page for more information or refer to the Health Star Rating website.