• About FDF
• Our Priorities
• Members list
• News
• Policy Briefings
• FDF Responses
• The Industry
  • About the Industry
  • Industry stats and trends
  • Industry Case Studies
    • Culture, Media and Sport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Fewer transport miles
    • Local Community
    • Reducing C02 emissions
    • Reducing packaging
    • Reformulation
    • Zero Waste to landfill
    • Water efficiency
    • Workplace Wellbeing
      • AF Blakemore and Son
      • Cadbury
      • Danone
      • Gibsons Foods
      • Kellogg’s
      • Kraft Foods
      • Mars Chocolate UK
      • Nestlé UK
      • Pepsico UK & Ireland
      • Tate & Lyle
      • Unilever UK
      • United Biscuits
  • Industry Standards
  • Exports
  • Food Sectors
• Events
• Publications
• Campaigns
• FAQs
• Polls

Case Study: Kraft Foods

Employee Wellbeing

Kraft Foods has around 2,000 employees at sites in Banbury in Oxfordshire and Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, and providing opportunities for employees to lead healthier lifestyles is part of its wider approach to health and wellness. This driving principle spans the company's programme of product reformulation, the way it communicates about its products and its community work.

Kraft believes in encouraging employee participation in health and wellness activities by choice, and tries to build all employee activity around the principle of a healthy balance between nutrition and physical activity.

The programme was established in 2004, and has integrated well with existing workstreams of occupational health, sports and social activities and flexible working programmes.

The programme is based around two areas:

• Information: giving employees the opportunity to learn more about health and wellbeing. Communication channels include intranet bulletins, the employee magazine, on site posters and plasma screens. The information is also themed under heart health, weight management and bone health, for example
• Special events: supporting participation in local/ national events such as the London to Brighton Bike Ride. There are Healthy Living weeks at the offices and factory sites; ad hoc health checks; on-site massage, reflexology, exercise classes, health and fitness information, as well as cookery demos, recipe features and 5-a-day promotions

Kraft has introduced a variety of ongoing activities. For instance, from a diet perspective, salads, fruit and reduced-fat or calorie choices are always available in staff restaurants. On the activity front, the company has facilities to support active travel, including bike racks, lockers and showers.

A number of exercise classes take place each week, alongside sports clubs run by employees for employees. Kraft's occupational health teams provide health checks as well as bespoke health information for function-specific staff – such as production line or field sales, for example – as well as smoking cessation and alcohol awareness support.

Employee uptake and involvement in all areas has been fantastic, where participation in activities such as exercise classes and sports clubs have become part of the fabric of the business, including pilates, yoga, circuit training, football, netball and lunchtime running and walking clubs.

The health checks are very popular, with high numbers of employees taking part in cardiovascular screenings, the annual 'blood pressure week' at Banbury, 'mini MOTs' which are offered to hard-to-reach employees such as field staff, and 'flu vaccinations.

In January 2006 Kraft was awarded a 'Big Challenge' award by BBC Gloucestershire for its employee wellbeing initiatives.

More Information

FDF has published a booklet called Workplace Wellbeing: The Food Industry in Action (pdf, 1.2Mb) which features many of the schemes found in this section.

top