Co-led by wholesaler Metro France and Danone, as well as members of The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), Barilla, Bel, Bonduelle, Flora Food Group, Labeyrie Fine Foods, Nestlé, and Groupe Savencia, collaborated through the Healthier Lives Coalition’s Dietary Shifts initiative, ‘Mon Restaurant Passe Au Durable’ (My Restaurant Goes Sustainable), to encourage the sales of healthier, flexitarian products.
Together, members created recipes for professional chefs featuring flexitarian recipes and shared them through a multichannel campaign reaching 180,000 professional clients. The campaign supported an 11% rise in turnover on the featured products sold through METRO France.
For other manufacturers and retailers, the initiative shows how targeted online campaigns can help grow sales of healthier products.
Manufacturers continue to invest in expanding their flexitarian and plant-based portfolios, while retailers and wholesalers play a critical role in helping restaurant owners discover and adopt these options.
As a leading retailer, METRO France sits at the centre of this value chain. However, September is typically a slower trading period for many retailers, marked by tighter budgets and limited willingness to adjust menus. This creates a challenge for introducing new products—even those aligned with long-term health, sustainability, and growth objectives.
While many retailers see the value of offering more vegetarian dishes, menu changes are often deprioritised during slower trading periods. Tight budgets, limited time, and operational pressure make experimentation risky. As a result, products that support healthier diets do not always always make it into everyday dishes.
For member companies, this highlights the need for a simple, low-risk way to help operators trial healthier options without adding complexity, or disruption.
In September 2025, two new recipes were added to a recipe collection, as part of the ‘Mon Restaurant Passe Au Durable’ initiative and shared online across France with each recipe trialled by a professional chef, in collaboration with METRO France.
The recipes enable restaurateurs to introduce one or two vegetarian options that are tasty, balanced, and affordable—priced under three euros.
What began as a pilot in Lyon has now expanded nationwide with 17 recipes designed to meet the growing demand for healthier and environmentally-conscious food choices.
The campaign supported an 11% rise in turnover for METRO France and brought 10% more buyers to the featured products, with most of the uplift coming from table-service restaurants.
Ludovic Maitrias, Head of the Sustainable Development Program at METRO France said, “By working closely with our manufacturing partners and chefs, we showed that practical menu inspiration can make a real difference—helping operators introduce vegetarian dishes with confidence while delivering commercial results.”
Thomas Kyriaco, Danone Sustainability & Customers Director Europe said, “This joint effort with CGF, Metro and other brands shows how practical inspiration can enable chefs to confidently introduce menu options that foster healthier and more sustainable behaviours while delivering growth — perfectly aligned with Danone’s mission to bring health through food to as many people as possible.”
For the CGF members, this case study illustrates how coordinated action across retailers, manufacturers, and foodservice operators can help healthier, vegetarian products secure a stronger place in everyday food choices—while also driving sales growth.
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