Little by little, the Paris 2024 puzzle is being put into place, piece by piece. On Monday, the organizing committee formalized the arrival of Sodexo as Official Supporter alongside its dedicated subsidiary Sodexo Live! who was entrusted with the restoration of the Athletes' Village. For five weeks, the French company, created in 1966 in Marseille by Pierre Bellon, will mobilize more than 1,000 employees per day in the Village and will offer up to 40,000 daily services for the 14,850 athletes from the 206 Olympic delegations and 182 delegations. Paralympics. To the great satisfaction of Tony Estanguet, the president of Paris 2024: “
I am delighted that the Sodexo group is joining the adventure of the Paris 2024 Games. With Sodexo Live !, we have chosen expertise to offer an optimal catering service to athletes (…) We share with the Sodexo Group, very committed to CSR issues (corporate social responsibility), the same desire to offer environmentally and socially responsible Games.
And it starts on the plate, with the choice of products or the recruitment of catering staff.
"
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Problems perfectly targeted by Franck Chanevas, CEO of Sodexo Live! : “
We are pursuing three main objectives. First of all, to offer a diet adapted to the requirements of high-level sport and which will contribute to the performance of athletes. Our menus will be developed with nutritionists specialized in the world of sport, and with the participation of the Paris 2024 Athletes' Commission. Next, we wish to provide an inventive, plural and gourmet cuisine embodied by three emblematic chefs to offer an unforgettable experience to athletes. Finally, there will be the recruitment of at least 15% of people with disabilities or far from employment or in priority areas.
"An ambition shared by Marlène Masure, Executive Director of Commercial Development and Marketing for Paris 2024:"
Sodexo is helping us build this model of useful and responsible Games.
We have set ourselves an extremely strong societal and environmental ambition, around five axes: integration, the circular economy, carbon, disability and commitment in the regions.
With Sodexo, we aim for sustainable catering, with zero food waste and to support local initiatives.
"
Three chefs at the service of athletes
As for the meal itself, in the country where haute cuisine reigns supreme, Marlène Masure also wants Paris 2024 to impose “French
know-how, with our cultural exception, the richness of our gastronomy and a sense of responsibility.
Sodexo will therefore rely on three renowned chefs: Akrame Benallal, Alexandre Mazzia and Amandine Chaignot. The latter has also set the tone on what it intends to bring: "
I am delighted with this partnership.
I have been working with Sodexo teams on several museum sites for a few years.
In my restaurants, we aim to limit meat.
We try to bring people to a new mode of consumption and we limit ourselves to one meat per day.
Little by little, we manage to move the codes smoothly.
Obviously, we work with fresh fruits and vegetables, in a local short circuit as much as possible.
They are my tracers and I think that we will move forward in this direction with Paris 2024, even if everything has not yet been mentioned and specified.
"
The stake is therefore that the athlete is well in his head, in his trainers and in his plate.
Carole Gallissot
For Carole Gallissant, one of the nutritionists who will be working on Paris 2024, the nutrition dossier is very important to hope for successful Games in terms of sports performance: "
Top-level athletes have all realized the importance of diet in their performance and for us, it was essential that this nutrition theme be properly addressed in the offer we are going to offer them. It should nevertheless be known that in the nutrition of the athlete, there is no miracle recipe, otherwise it would be known. Today, the difficulty is that each athlete has specific needs. Our challenge will therefore be to offer a sufficiently varied offer to all these plural eaters, according to their age, sex, discipline. Eating well does not necessarily make you win, but on the other hand, eating poorly can cause you to lose. The stake is therefore that the athlete is well in his head, in his trainers and in his plate.
"Nothing will therefore be left to chance by Sodexo (19.3 billion euros in consolidated sales in 2019-2020, present in 64 countries), as Franck Chanevas recalled by way of conclusion:"
For us, Games are a great showcase for exhibiting our catering know-how.
There are several issues, especially in terms of image, but also business with direct and indirect repercussions when you have been the operator of an event like this one.
"