At our company, our Benefits Department integrates fun activities for the corporate office to incorporate health and wellness into our busy days at work. To start off this year they came up with the Fruits and Vegetables Challenge. The challenge is a fun approach to help us increase the amount of servings of fruits and vegetables in our diets.
During Ferbuary, we challenged each other to eat more fruits and vegetables and at the end of the challenge the employees who had the most points won fun prizes! (On a side not, I won 2nd place. Woo hoo!)
Everyone who participated received a challenge log sheet to record the points each day and a ‘quick tips’ sheet to provide us with easy ideas that we can follow during the challenge. All forms of fruits and veggies counted – fresh, frozen, canned, dried and 100% juice.
Try the challenge yourself; here are just a few of the quick tips. You get a point for each one!
Helpful hint: a trip to Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes really increases the number of fruits and veggies for the challenge! I got 10 points per day on days I went to our restaurant!!
- Eat a red fruit or vegetable (like apples, tomatoes, red peppers, beets or strawberries)
- Eat a white fruit or vegetable (like potatoes, onions, cauliflower, bananas or white peaches)
- Eat one more fruit or vegetable today than you did yesterday
- Eat fruit for a snack today
- Make a vegetable omelet for breakfast
- Eat fruit for dessert today
- Add vegetables to your soup, rice or pasta at dinner
- Cut up vegetables for easy access in your refrigerator
- Enjoy one cup of 100% fruit juice with breakfast
- Keep a snack bag of dried fruit (like raisins or cranberries) in your purse, brief case or desk at work
- Try a new method for cooking vegetables (grilling, roasting, sautéing)
- Make a low-fat dip (like black bean dip, hummus or salsa) to accompany raw vegetables
The newest Sweet Tomatoes, located at 10940 Tamiami Trail North in the Granada Shoppes in Naples, is scheduled to open on Monday, March 22. To celebrate the grand opening, Sweet Tomatoes has partnered with the American Red Cross, Collier County Chapter, to host a preview fundraiser event on:
- Friday, March 19, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
- Saturday, March 20, from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
For only $5.00 (five dollars), guests can enjoy Sweet Tomatoes’ 55-foot salad bar full of fresh, seasonal vegetables and tossed salads, made-from-scratch soups and hand-crafted muffins, focaccia, breads and desserts. Sweet Tomatoes will donate 100 percent of the proceeds to the American Red Cross, Collier County Chapter, a humanitarian organization that provides relief to victims of disasters and help people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies.
Sweet Tomatoes offers a rotating menu of more than 100 original, made fresh daily recipes featuring signature salads, soups, bakery goods and hot pasta sauces, at an all-you-care-to-eat price. All food is prepared without the use of artificial flavors, colors, additives or artificial trans fats. A different food theme is featured each month and the most popular menu items are rotated every two weeks. Items are showcased on a 55-foot salad bar and prepared exhibition style every 20 minutes.
“We’d like to thank Sweet Tomatoes for stepping up to help the Red Cross, and welcome them to town,” commented Deborah Horvath CEO of Collier County Chapter. “It’s a wonderful Partnership and we thank them for their community involvement.”
Sweet Tomatoes seeks to be a vital and contributing part of each community in which it operates. To reach this goal, restaurants offer a “Fun-Raiser” program through which charities, churches, schools, athletic teams, scout troops and other non-profit organizations may raise funds by hosting in-store events. The restaurants assist in marketing the non-profit’s event by creating master flyers for distribution and promotion.
Sweet Tomatoes in Naples will be open daily from 11:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. on weekdays, 11:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m. on Saturday and 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. on Sundays. For more information call (239) 597-1112 or visit www.sweetomatoes.com; for more information on the American Red Cross visit http://www.colliercountyredcross.org. Guests can also become a fan of Sweet Tomatoes at www.facebook.com/souplantation and follow Sweet Tomatoes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/souplantation.
About Sweet Tomatoes
Sweet Tomatoes was founded in 1978 in San Diego and currently operates 112 salad buffet-style restaurants across the western, southern and eastern portions of the United States. Sweet Tomatoes cares about what comes out of guests’ wallets and into their bodies by creating an exceptional, all-you-care-to-eat dining experience with a daily selection of made-from-scratch soups and salads and hand-crafted muffins, focaccia, breads and tasty desserts. By combining high-quality, farm-fresh and scratch-made foods for a fixed price, the restaurants provide guests with the freedom to create their own wholesome meals. The restaurant concept is built around fresh prepared, great-tasting recipes with a salad bar full of seasonal vegetables and tossed salads prepared exhibition-style every 20 minutes. Sweet Tomatoes restaurants are open daily for lunch and dinner. For more information, visit www.sweettomatoes.com.
About American Red Cross:
The American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization, led by volunteers, that provides relief to victims of disasters and helps people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies. It does this through services that are consistent with its congressional charter and the fundamental principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
###
We have chosen new members for our Kitchen Cabinet. We are thrilled to have a selected group of 14 meet at our Corporate Office in San Diego on March 23. Over 8,000 Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes Club Veg members from around the country applied to be Kitchen Cabinet® members this year and 14 will be representing guests’ perspectives on recipes, service elements in the restaurant, upcoming promotions and much more.
We have a great group of reps that we are looking forward to meeting, who knows, you might see a blog from them on what they thought about our offices and their experience. Take a look at a few of this year’s cabinet:
Regina – Ft. Myers, FL
Favorite Menu Item: Wonton Chicken Happiness Tossed Salad
Her take on Sweet Tomatoes: “It has really good salads. The soups generally are great as are the corn muffins and whipped honey butter.”
Connie- Tampa, FL
Sweet Tomatoes is one of my all time favorite places to eat with my family. There’s something healthy for everyone including my picky daughter.
Blogs about Sweet Tomatoes at http://brainfoggles.com
Scott – Houston, TX
Favorite Menu Item: Chicken Pot Pie Soup
Visits Sweet Tomatoes 2- 3 times a month
Linda – San Diego, CA
Favorite Menu Item: Joan’s Broccoli Madness
Her take on Souplantation: “Lots of veggies, great soups and leave room for chocolate chip cookies.”
Jacque- Phoenix, AZ
Favorite Menu Item: Salad
Her take on Sweet Tomatoes: “Amazing choices, Love the salads, pasta, bread, pizza, soups, potatoes, fruit, desserts. Everything in one place. One place to please everyone.”
We wanted to give a quick shout-out to our original Kitchen Cabinet group. Thank you so much for all your feedback. Thank you to Marney, Angie, Amy, Kate, Linda, Angela, Arleen, Rosalie, Teri, Paige, Laura and Anne.
Thank you for your many contributions!!!
Love-
Joan
On March 22, our Encinitas, CA Souplantation and our Naples, FL Sweet Tomatoes will open their doors to their local communities. For each grand opening we partner with a non-profit organization and host a two or three day preview event before opening. For only $5.00 (five dollars), guests can create their own salad from our 55-foot salad bar full of fresh, seasonal vegetables as well as enjoying signature tossed salads, made-from-scratch soups and hand-crafted muffins, pizza focaccia, breads and desserts. Sweet Tomatoes and Souplantation will donate 100 percent of the proceeds to the non-profits we chose to work with. The highest record to date was $11,000 to Give Kids the World, a non-profit resort in Central Florida that creates magical memories for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families at our Lake Buena Vista location in May 2009.
Our restaurants are committed to being a vital and contributing part of each community in which we operate. To reach this goal, restaurants offer a “Fun-Raiser” program through which local charities, churches, schools, athletic teams, scout troops and other non-profit organizations may raise funds by hosting in-restaurant events. Our managers assist in marketing the non-profit’s event by creating master flyers for distribution and promotion by the non-profit organization.
The pre-opening fundraisers are a great way to raise money for the non-profit but also a way for our new employees at the restaurant to train before we officially open to the public.
If you were opening a restaurant, what would your grand opening event be? Share your ideas and maybe we will us them in an upcoming grand opening… (and of course give you the credit!!)
© 2010 Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp.
