The Olympics are all about numbers: 500, the number of meters in a freestyle swim; 20, the maximum-possible points in rhythmic gymnastics; 3 million, the number of bananas the culinary team at Olympic Village think they’ll need over the course of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which take place over two weeks this summer.
It’s a daunting task to feed 15,000 people no matter what, but if food is fuel, the chefs feeding the athletes at Olympic Village are somewhat responsible for how these athletes perform. Events management and catering group Sodexo Live takes that responsibility seriously. What results is an incredible feat of logistics, combining sustainable sourcing, diversity of options, and ensuring all athlete’s nutritional needs are met by some combination of the 500 dishes that will be served.
But it’s not just baseline nutritional needs that need to be met — athletes are coming from all over the world, with their own culinary traditions. The Olympics are supposed to be a place of cultural exchange, and this extends to the food. Sodexo Live has brought on partner chefs Amandine Chaignot, Akrame Benallal, and Alexandra Mazzia to serve dishes like quinoa muesli, chickpea pommade, and gnocchi in chicken sauce to showcase modern French cuisine. Other chefs on the team are charged with creating everything athletes will need to eat, both before and after the competition.
I spoke to Estelle Lamotte, Sodexo’s director of Olympic Village, and senior executive chef Jeff Leidy (at the time he was feeding the athletes at tennis tournament Indian Wells) about how they’re balancing nutrition and flavor, why athletes won’t walk five minutes for a meal, and what you do with 40 tons of coffee grounds.
You took a survey of 200 athletes on their culinary needs and preferences. What were the results of that survey?
Estelle Lamotte: The survey starts with the International Committee, which has a database of the previous editions and the trends, and what athletes in different delegations are after. It’s really important to realize that every four years there is something new or completely different that the country that is hosting has to adapt to when it comes to curating a menu. We gathered a lot of information, things that are very basic and more focused on the nutritional aspects and needs of the athlete, and others that are more cultural, ensuring that they feel like they’re home wherever they go. So we had to take all of this information, and start making priorities, and balance it out with the number of athletes that eat certain types of food.
Are there any specific dishes on the menu that you’re excited about, or dishes that were developed specifically for this athlete’s village?
EL: The menu is extremely extensive, we have over 550 products in our recipes, in order to really ensure that every single person there has what they’re looking for. Being in France, there’s going to be quite an emphasis on French food, so we’re going to bring some of the classics to the table. Hopefully, athletes will be curious and enjoy that, usually after they’ve competed.
We’re going to be working with three chefs based in France. We wanted to highlight what French gastronomy is all about nowadays. Benallal came up with a quinoa muesli dish; it’s quite unexpected since we associate muesli more with breakfast. But we turn it into a savory dish with sour yogurt. Alexandra has a chickpea pomade in a smoked fish sauce and an almondine with langoustines. We are very aware that ,for athletes, these games are really important and the expectations are going to be extremely high. Not only because it’s France, but in Tokyo the energy in the athlete’s village was obviously shaken up by COVID. So all the chefs have worked so hard to ensure that the entire menu offered is vibrant and relevant to how we eat now.
You mentioned that athletes eat differently before and after they compete. How do you tailor meals to the athletes’ needs at different times?
EL: Athletes work and prepare for four years, and they’re here for two weeks, or 10 days for the Paralympics. Depending on the sports, some of them have to ensure they have the exact right weight prior to the games, and maintain it. Other sports like cycling and running are much more gluten-centric. We have 32 sports, so you have 32 different ways of eating, and requirements.
There is a web app for athletes that will be available ahead of the games. This way, the whole crew and delegation will receive the menu plans, and be able to map out everything they need to eat, and where in the village to find it. One of the funny parts that we’ve learned is that we think they’re all athletes and in their physical prime, so distance doesn’t matter. But actually it does, because our dining hall is extremely large, it’s over 220 meters long and 24 meters wide. Walking from one side to the other takes five minutes. And these competitors, they’re not going to go that far, they’re going to really ensure the minimum steps so they don’t spend too much energy. Nobody expected that.
Jeff Leidy: As a chef, you originally look at a meal or food that you’re preparing and think, how does it taste? How does it look? But then you have this dynamic of the nutritional needs of the athletes. So when you do your menu planning, you have to understand there are certain athletes who want a carb-heavy diet, there are certain athletes who want lean protein. There are a lot of different factors that you have to take into account, and then wrap all that up into the question of how do I make it taste? How do we make it look good, and appealing to the athletes, especially over a long period of time?
Are there any tricks you’ve discovered to making those dishes with a focus on lean protein or carbs still taste good, without just adding a ton of butter and salt?
JL: For me, it’s the quality of the ingredients and how you source them. Especially with the Olympics this year, there’s a lot of plant-based focus. It’s high on a lot of athletes’ minds. And so I try to start with sourcing quality ingredients, and then implement them into recipes and menus.
I’m curious how you went about sourcing the sheer quantity of ingredients that you have for the Olympics, while still ensuring that the quality is good enough, that this is sustainable, and that this is going to be flavorful, good food for everybody eating it.
EL: The meat will be 100 percent French, mostly vegetables from France, and the rest will be European. We are fortunate enough that we are physically able to get the resources from nearby. There are a couple of exceptions, but that’s because of the volume and the quantity and the range of products we have. And it’s great that the producers have played a part as well. Since last year, we could give them the information of what was needed to be planted and harvested according to our needs, and they’ve adapted. Eggs will be one of the massive products that will be consumed during the games. For the purchasing team, and procurement, it’s been a fantastic journey to really start from the beginning of the chain and work alongside producers.
There are a few products we need to source internationally: coffee, chocolate, bananas. Bananas are an athlete’s favorite thing. We anticipate getting two or three million bananas. At peak time there will be 15,000 people living in one place. So that means per day, at peak time, we’re going to go up to 40,000 meals. At the end of the entire journey, it’s over 1.2 million meals. I was working on quantifying the volume of coffee, how to produce it. And then someone said, “Can we get the coffee grinds back to us to use as a fertilizer?” So what’s the volume of grinds we’ll produce? I’’s 20 tons of coffee, so that means it’ll be 40 tons of coffee residue. But all of this is going to be used to grow mushrooms.
Is the food available 24 hours, to account for different competing schedules?
EL: The dining hall is this massive building that was a former electrical site. It’s transformed into six different restaurants, and each restaurant has a theme. You have a French quarter, Asian quarter, halal food. The International Committee gave us an estimate that 18 percent of the population will be eating halal, so we have dedicated a whole segment to that. Five of the restaurants will be open from 5 a.m. until 1 a.m., and one of them is open 24 hours. Overnight between that 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. it’s less people, but the opening hours are still extremely wide. There are also grab-and-go spaces with things like burgers and shawarma sandwiches. We don’t talk about nutritional values there, because this is what the athletes want after competing.
JL: I’m excited to be a part of serving the American delegation. We’re serving stuff as basic as BBQ ribs, mac and cheese, and chili.
EL: Americans have been extremely vocal about what they want. They were more picky and sensitive about having a lot of gluten-free items, and a more vegetable-based diet. Also each delegation has rooms in the village to create their own things. The Australian delegation, they literally turned a space into a coffee shop and brought a barista.
Are there any athletes that wind up bringing personal chefs or bringing only their own food with them?
JL: So with Indian Wells, we’re contending with that a lot — there’s a couple of tennis players that are traveling with their private chefs and they rent homes. So the dynamic is they’ll rent all these very expensive homes in the area. And then there’s this coordination of having these chefs in their homes, and then the chefs coming with them to the tournament, bringing those dishes with them. And we have to figure out how we interact with their personal chefs to be able to provide that athlete’s specific meal during the tournament.
EL: Because it’s so complicated, the International Committee has said no more private chefs. So we’ll see how that’s going to play out. I think every delegation was satisfied once everything was communicated about how much there will be on offer. It’s up to us now, like Jeff said, to ensure the quality of the ingredients and the flavors. Many of the teams have nutritionists, and often they will literally tell the athletes every day what they have to eat and where to find it so the athlete doesn’t have to think. And then we’ve been told really clearly there is the before and after, for the athletes when they get eliminated. That’s a very different vibe and the way they eat changes quite a bit.
What does that change look like, when they can relax and not think about weight or nutrition as intensely? Is there a bar area? Are they going to be able to drink and celebrate a win or a loss?
EL: There is no alcohol sold within the village. I’m sure some of the delegation again will have cake or beers. But they’re going to be in Paris. And let’s remember the average age of the athletes is 24 years old. We don’t need to worry about them sourcing alcohol.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Additional photo credits: Eiffel Tower photo by Christian Liewig – Corbis/Getty Images; BMX photo by David Balogh/Getty Images; Diver photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images; Olympic Village photo by Bloomberg/Getty Images
