OLYMPIC APPETITE: Sodexo Live! executive chef Charles Guilloy and worldwide CEO Nathalie Bellon-Szabo demonstrate some of the food service offerings at the Olympic Village to Tony Estanguet, French President of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics Organizing Committee. (AFP via Getty Images)
Best Special Event
Paris Olympics 2024 Athletes’ Village
Sodexo Live! is no stranger to providing Parisians with culinary delights, having started in France, and being globally headquartered in Paris. The company has partnered for decades with the Roland-Garros French Open tennis tournament, restaurants in the Eiffel Tower, the Bateaux Parisiens on the Seine, and many more.
Still, providing some 13 million meals at the world’s largest restaurant — the Athlete’s Village at this year’s Paris Olympics and Paralympics — is a special gig to get, even for a business whose history in so closely intertwined with the French capital.
Sodexo Live! has pulled out all the stops for this prestigious sporting extravaganza: the offerings on site have been drawn up after consulting athletes and nutritional experts, including Helene Defrance, a French former Olympian and dietician who won a sailing bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. That’s in addition to the company’s vast experience catering high-profile sporting events such as the prestigious French Open at Roland Garros and the Tour de France cycling competition.
If you’ve know anything about French culture, you’ll know that food plays an important role in it. And while Sodexo Live’s team of culinary experts is a cut above, it was important to the team to bring in other renowned French chefs to add an extra layer of excitement and unique, local flavors to the Athlete’s Olympic diet. Those chefs include Michelin-starred and acclaimed chefs Akrame Benallal, Alexandre Mazzia and Amandine Chaignot. The goal with feeding the athletes was also to provide a taste of home through our global cuisine expertise.
Approximately 1,000 Sodexo Live! staff —or Experience Makers, as the company refers to them — were involved each day. There were 6,000 staff total, with 15% coming from disadvantaged communities, including a select group of about 20 top chefs from Sodexo Live! venues around the globe who had the opportunity to visit the Games and help the local French team operate day to day.
Sodexo Live! worked hard to go above and beyond in all things sustainability. Measures were implemented to to help cut down the Olympic carbon footprint by 200% compared to the 2012 London Games, targeting an average of 1kg of CO2 per meal. This entailed cutting the quantity of single-use plastic at the consumption phase; ensuring 100% equipment infrastructure is given a second life after the Games; sourcing 80% of the total food supply from France and 25% sourced from within 150 miles of the competition venues; recovering 100% of uneaten food resources for donation to food banks and charities, or the use of bio waste to create compost.
Paris 2024 signed an agreement with three associations to collect and redistribute the unsold food to a pair of French food banks.
“Preventing food waste is one of the pillars of Sodexo Live!’s CSR roadmap, because we are committed wholeheartedly to ensure sustainable experiences with a responsible footprint,” said Estelle Lamotte, Sodexo Live! director of Olympic Village.
“We are taking action on this issue both upstream and downstream of the production chain: training our chefs and using ‘inglorious’ or ‘bruised’ fruits and vegetables.”
The company’s business philosophy doesn’t change, whether catering for an intimate banquet or making sure the best athletes from around the world get their sustenance during one of the most-watched sporting competitions in the world.
“No matter the event,we want the hospitality and service provided to be something that helps to create unforgettable memories as part of the event,” Lamotte said.
