A NEW award is on the menu for South Lakeland’s food businesses in a bid to boost healthy eating.

Restaurants, cafes, pubs and staff canteens across the area are being encouraged to provide healthy food choices for customers and be in with a chance of receiving a Healthier Menus Award.

South Lakeland District Council has launched the initiative in partnership with Cumbria NHS and Trading Standards in an effort to ensure that customers have healthy options to choose from whenever they eat out locally.

To qualify for the award, food businesses must maintain high standards of hygiene — as shown by achieving a four or five-star rating in the Scores on the Doors scheme — and make healthy dishes available on the menu everyday, using healthier cooking techniques and ingredients.

Together with NHS Cumbria, SLDC has produced a simple guide to help chefs create a healthier menu, suggesting creative ways of making dishes more nutritional and better for you, while still being tasty.

Councillor Clare Feeney-Johnson, portfolio holder for environment and sustainability, said: “Our busy lifestyles mean there are now many occasions when we eat out.

"Caterers and food businesses therefore play an important role in influencing our eating habits and the Healthier Menus Award is a positive way of promoting healthy eating throughout the district.”

To gain the Healthier Menus Award, businesses must simply complete a score sheet to demonstrate how their menu meets the criteria and applications can be made throughout the year.

Once the award has been presented, it will be valid until the next routine food hygiene inspection, but random checks will take place to ensure the menu meets the criteria.

For more information, visit southlakeland.gov.uk or contact SLDC’s Food Safety Team on 0845 0504434.