Jiancheng Machinery uses eco-friendly ingredients, serving an organic meal once a week.
At its self-run kitchen in the Hukou plant, Chengchen Machinery began working with a group-meal caterer and the Chengchen Environmental Education Foundation last October, serving organic ingredients at Thursday lunch. At the lunch site, Chengchen staff also gave short talks on food and environmental issues. After listening, many employees asked about the details one after another, saying they wanted to go home and share it with their families; some employees even called organic farmers directly to ask about growing techniques.
One Organic Meal a Week: Chengchen Foundation Partners with Chengchen
When employees saw the organic ingredients to be served the next day, they joked: "There's pineapple! Is it one per person tomorrow?" A Chengchen staff member replied: "It's only for making sweet soup!" Other employees were puzzled after seeing the organic vegetables: "These vegetables have no wormholes. Are they really organic?" At the organic lunch the next day, Chengchen staff arranged for the vegetables just harvested by small farmers, as well as the sorted vegetables, to be placed on site so employees could compare them in person.
Xu Jingling said that at first, when giving talks to employees on site, all she saw was people with their heads down eating away, so she thought no one was listening. Unexpectedly, after the questionnaires were collected, the response turned out to be enthusiastic: "Which channels in the Hsinchu area can be used to buy reliable organic ingredients?" "How can you tell with the naked eye whether a food product is organic?" "Does the government require manufacturers to provide detailed labeling?" Some employees, after seeing Chengchen's poster introducing small farmers, called the small farmers directly to buy ingredients, and even asked about technical questions on organic farming.
From last October to now, the once-a-week organic lunch promoted by the Chengchen Environmental Education Foundation at Chengchen Machinery has been experimental in nature. It will come to a close this month, and the follow-up approach will be re-planned.
One Chengchen employee wrote on the organic meal questionnaire: "We suggest that this organic concept be implemented by the group-meal caterer, for everyone's benefit." Kecheng Company, the group-meal caterer working with Chengchen, believes organic ingredients are the future trend, but the current cost of purchasing organic ingredients is still the main consideration. Wu Jifu, section chief of the General Affairs Section at Chengchen Machinery, said: "Of course we hope the organic meal is only pausing for now, and that in the future we can keep pushing forward."
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