workforce
Aged care chef Gordon Manuel celebrates his HESTA Award. Photo: HESTA
Dishing up the goods
Award-winning chef believes top quality food is
crucial to good health for aged care residents.
By Dallas Bastian
A
ged care chef Gordon Manuel always asks himself if he’d
be willing to pay good money at a restaurant for the meal
he’s serving to a resident. If not, he won’t send it out.
Manuel, who has a background in hotel restaurants and now
works for the Mark Moran Group, says his philosophy is to give
residents top quality, restaurant- and hotel-style meals.
For his work, Manuel took out the Individual Distinction
Award at the 2017 HESTA Aged Care Awards, held in Adelaide.
HESTA said he was recognised for his outstanding work in
creating innovative aged care dining and culinary experiences
for residents.
At the ceremony, Southern Cross Care (SA & NT) received
the Outstanding Organisation Award, while the Team
Innovation Award went to the Aged Care Indigenous Induction
Program by Crest NT.
One key innovation spearheaded by Manuel, which the
industry super fund highlighted, was the creation of meals
that are nutritionally and visually appealing, despite their
modification due to dietary requirements.
Manuel said promoting good dining experiences is about
looking beyond what is typically expected in aged care.
32 agedcareinsite.com.au
“We take the blinkers off the whole notion of aged care
being an institution. We challenge things. We found that by
doing this, we get innovative things done.”
Aged Care Insite spoke with Manuel about his philosophies
on aged care food and dining and asked him to share his best
tips for providers.
ACI: What’s your philosophy on food and dining in
aged care?
GM: To me, food needs to look appealing, it needs to taste very
nice, and it needs to have nutritional value to it. As I say, it needs
to be a restaurant or hotel kind of quality, or the kind of quality
that anyone would be happy to serve to their loved ones at
home. That’s the kind of standard that somebody would, to me,
need to eat on a daily basis.
What are some of the ways you go about ensuring that
residents are excited about the food they’re eating and are
getting the most out of it?
My menus are very balanced. You wouldn’t find two meals
back to back. You wouldn’t have chicken tonight, as an
example, and then have chicken again tomorrow for lunch.
That gets a lot of thought processes going.
My menu is stuck on my office wall in big colour-coded
pictures, so we make sure not only is it nutritionally balanced,
and that it gets signed off by a nutritionist, but also that there’s no