In the main canteen you want to serve 3,500 dishes in one go. How many people are helping you with this?
There are 1,000 people for this alone if you add up managers, logisticians, cooks and servers. There will be up to 40,000 meals per day. That is an incredible number, and the infrastructure must therefore be solid. The difference between our project and previous Olympic Games is that we are not setting up a tent with air conditioning and a temporary kitchen. We are in a former factory building, the Cité du Cinéma. We have to convert that into a food court. A huge challenge, but it will be great. When you walk into the building it looks like a cathedral.
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Let’s talk about the carbon footprint again. You want to achieve 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide instead of an average of 2 kilograms per meal. How is that supposed to work?
The more local products we use, the lower the CO2 emissions from transport. That makes a huge difference. This is where our claim to use 80 percent products from France comes from. We will also reduce the consumption of meat and offer many more vegetarian dishes. We don’t go that far with the athletes because they should get their usual meals. But in public catering, 60 percent of our sandwich offerings will actually be vegetarian. The staff’s meals are 50 percent vegetarian.