In the face of rising demand from event attendees for menus that meet their specific diet requirements, IACC in collaboration with the World Obesity Foundation has created the Guide to Managing Conference Delegate Dietary Requirements. The new guide is designed to help event planners manage partnerships and work with venues to create appropriate menus.
The guide also discusses various allergens and emerging diets, including religious requirements and health-related allergens. It also provides advice and practical tips on how to place delegate health and well-being at the heart of events without compromising on the experience, IACC says.
HANDS UP “Last year, when I asked a room of 200 meeting planners if managing dietary needs was a challenge, and 75 percent or more raised their hands, I knew immediately that we needed to do more as an association and industry,” said Mark Cooper, IACC CEO. “As we conducted more research, we saw clearly that there was some valuable insights and best practice that, if adopted, would help both our planner and venue community. This is just the beginning, and we hope that in the near future we will see more training and certifications to support the competent management of dietary needs.”
One of the pieces of research undertaken by IACC that showed a gap in the market, which presented a challenge for planners and drove the creation of the dietary guide, was IACC’s latest Trends in Nutrition and Delegate Wellbeing study.
This study highlighted that 79 percent of meeting planners agreed that they now receive more dietary requests in comparison to two years ago; only 75 percent of venues offer training to staff on serving people with allergies; and only 33 percent of venues include basic nutritional information on their menus.
The full guide is available for download here.
