Tell the Nation’s Largest Restaurant Company: Serve Fair, Green and Healthier Food

As we’ve written about before, nearly half the money we spend on food is spent outside the home. Even the most conscientious shopper has little control about how fair and healthy our food is when we go to a restaurant. That is why we support efforts to push restaurants, and especially large restaurant chains with significant buying power, to do more for the farmers and workers in their supply chains and the consumers who frequent their restaurants. This past spring we started asking large restaurant companies, like Darden, to do their part to ensure fairness for farmworkers in Mexico.

Unfortunately, many restaurant chains serve unhealthy and unsustainable food that goes beyond just produce from Mexico and includes, as just one more example, factory-farm meat and dairy that pollute the environment and put workers in danger.

That is why Fair World Project is now joining other environmental, public health, and worker organizations like Friends of the Earth, Food Chain Workers Alliance, Food Democracy Now, Green America and Restaurant Opportunities Centers United to urge Darden, the largest full-service restaurant company, with chains like Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse to serve greener meals that are better for our health and the planet.

With more than 1500 restaurants, serving 320 million meals every year, Darden’s purchasing and menu decisions have a huge impact on people’s health and our environment. By sourcing more ingredients that are fair, humane, and good for the environment, and reducing portion size, Darden can have a huge impact on farmers, workers, and consumers. In fact, Darden can change the entire industry, ensuring healthier meals, living wages, and fair prices for thousands of food and farm workers, farmers, and consumers.