AVO Nashville becomes the first Eat REAL Certified Gold in Tennessee

AVO Nashville is the first location in the state of Tennessee to achieve the Gold Level Eat REAL Certified Status. AVO prides itself as a restaurant focused on creating a fun dining experience with a balanced approach to health.  Offering a 100% plant-based, Certified Kosher menu with an emphasis on local sourcing, AVO provides innovative and delicious options to its customers.

“We’re so grateful to be a part of Eat Real’s initiative to provide incentives for restaurants to make better ingredient choices for their guests,” said Annie Choo, owner of AVO, “We want to do our part to contribute to a conscious, sustainable food system that nourishes our community and supports local producers so that we may all have access to healthy choices in Nashville.”

REAL Certified is the nationally recognized mark of excellence for food and foodservice providers. Eat REAL’s third-party registered dieticians utilize a points-based REAL Index to review and verify foodservice providers across a range of criteria. To become REAL Certified, operators must satisfy prerequisites and earn sufficient points in the areas of nutrition, food preparation, ingredient sourcing, and environmental stewardship.

By becoming Gold certified, AVO is a leader in Tennessee for Eat REAL Certified establishments – the goal of which is to represent the top 1% of nutrition and sustainability best-practice nationwide. On top of scoring highly on the REAL Certified audit standards, Gold Level restaurants must also meet the following criteria:

● At least one of the oils used in food preparation is Non-GMO.
● 50% of entrees contain at least one serving of vegetables that are not deep-fried, juiced, or sweetened.
● No more than 50% of the pre-packaged food items sold include ingredients from Eat REAL’s list of Undesirable Ingredients.

“AVO’s mission to serve inventive, great tasting food with a focus on balanced health is deeply aligned with Eat Real’s goals to inspire and improve healthy options within the state”, says Nikkole Turner, Eat REAL Tennessee Program Manager, “They put their values into practice and are doing their part to support a sustainable food system.”

Eat REAL Tennessee receives support from a grant issued by the Tennessee Department of Health’s Project Diabetes, a multi-faceted, statewide initiative to reduce diet-related disease throughout Tennessee.

For more information on AVO visit their website here.

About Eat REAL

Eat REAL® is a 501(c) (3) Public Health nonprofit organization based in Richmond, California. Eat REAL is dedicated to transforming food in K-12 schools, creating a healthier next generation and planet. Launched in 2012, Eat REAL Certified is a nutrition and sustainability best practices certification program working with school district food service leaders to raise the bar and make food in schools more nutritious and sustainable. Eat REAL’s core program currently supports 237 schools, reaching over 116,000 students.