The Challenge
When roughly 6,000 employees eat at your canteens nearly every day, your cafeteria isn’t a perk — it’s a significant source of emissions. For BASF, reducing the climate impact of its food service became a formal sustainability goal — one that required buy-in from food service management and the colleagues responsible for menu planning.
They had also observed a growing trend towards a flexitarian lifestyle in their employees, and saw an opportunity to support a shift towards more sustainable dietary habits by demonstrating that plant-forward dishes can be both delicious and appealing.
The Approach
BASF took a two-pronged approach: reducing the footprint of high-impact dishes while elevating plant-rich alternatives.
On the reduction side, their culinary team made targeted changes to the most emissions-intensive menu items. For example, they reduced the number of days serving their most popular red meat dish — a hamburger — by a third, and replaced other popular beef dishes with attractive but less popular alternatives, which brought down overall beef sales and purchasing. They also reduced portion sizes in dishes like goulash, Bolognese, minced meat, and sliced meat — changes that were both operationally straightforward and well-received by diners.
In parallel, BASF invested in making their plant-rich offerings genuinely appealing. They brought in an external vegan chef to upskill their culinary teams and systematically overhauled underperforming vegetarian recipes — improving both taste and presentation.
“It was important that promoting a plant-forward, climate-friendly diet is included in our agreed sustainability goals, which are supported by our food-service management team and implemented by the colleagues responsible for menu planning and offering design. For that reason, I would say that a strategic anchoring of this approach — and, above all, colleagues who believe in it and actively drive it forward — are a major part of the success.” — Tobias Pawlik, Teamlead Sustainability, Quality and Safety at BASF Gastronomie
The Outcome
The results speak for themselves. Between 2020 and 2024, BASF reduced per-plate emissions at its Ludwigshafen headquarters by 29% — with the sharpest drop, 12%, occurring between 2023 and 2024 alone.
Promoting a plant-rich diet has become a key pillar of BASF’s sustainability strategy. Joining Coolfood helped them work towards a science-based target and to establish continuous tracking of progress, as well as insights and guidance on behavior change techniques.
Coolfood Tip:
While the plant-based dishes served are primarily healthy, BASF observed that “fast-food” options, for example: crispy burgers with wedges or veggie kebabs, attract diners from target groups outside of the health-conscious eater.