workforce repetitive things happening over and over. Generally, you wouldn’ t find the same soup in a month’ s cycle, and things like that.
We do a lot of live cooking, as it were, in each one of the levels. We’ ve got a main production kitchen at our facility, but we’ ve also got small satellite kitchens which are very much like the domestic kitchens that you would find in anybody’ s home.
My chefs actually go up and will do things like make the bacon and fry the eggs to order at one of the satellite kitchens. Or, we would make a pie as an example, or lasagna in the main kitchen, but it will get baked off upstairs.
We do try and cook to order for residents when they would like their meals. We also don’ t have a time restraint, so our breakfast, for example, starts early in the morning, but it’ s not just a quick half-hour breakfast. Somebody could still be eating breakfast at 10:30 in the morning. It’ s your choice.
We give a lot of choice back to residents, so you can choose whether you would like to have a shower and then come for breakfast, or whether you would like to have your breakfast in a dressing gown and then go and have a shower afterwards. It’ s a much more relaxed environment, giving the choice back.
What’ s your approach to the dining experience? Again, we look at quality meals. I’ ve got qualified chefs working in the satellite kitchens, and with the dining. The reason why we do a lot of cooking upstairs is that there’ s a lot of smells and things like that just permeating through the dining room. You can get the smell of chicken being roasted in the oven, or a lasagne being roasted, or whether it’ s a pie that’ s being made.
But food gets served hot – or it gets served at its best possible time would probably be a better way to answer that. We don’ t like food standing around waiting to be eaten.
What advice would you give to providers interested in improving the dining experience in their facilities? Take your blinkers off, basically. We are governed by the Vulnerable People’ s Act, and there are a lot of things that we may not do legislatively-wise, but that doesn’ t mean you can’ t challenge things. If you take the blinkers off and question and look at different ways and different angles, how you can prepare food, it can only get better.
What do you think people should avoid doing? I know it’ s difficult, and some facilities might not have any other choice, but to me, a no-no is food being plated up in a main kitchen, then being put into a hotbox, and then it needs to travel a long way to a satellite kitchen where the hotbox gets plugged in, and it could sit there for, I don’ t know how long, before the food actually reaches any one of the residents. To me, that’ s a big no-no. It’ s something that I would avoid at all costs if at all possible.
Congratulations on winning this year’ s Individual Distinction Award from HESTA. What does the recognition mean to you and what do you hope it
says to other people about the work that you’ re doing? As a chef, I’ m often just in a dark corner, in any facility. I’ m of the belief, and I do stand firm, that a lot of places see things such as the catering side of things or the maintenance side of things, as a support business to the clinical side, which is the most important. I look at it differently. I like to think, and I could be wrong, that the clinical side is really the support business when it’ s within aged care, and where things such as food especially, but maintenance as well, are the main parts.
If you can make a resident’ s life comfortable, and you can give them food that they are happy with on a daily basis, then you are on a good record.
So for me to be recognised from the catering side and aspect of aged care is really great. It gives me back the belief that we are doing the right thing by serving food.
I often [ used to ] get the comment:“ This is not a five-star hotel.” Not over here, because I do think we are in a bit of a six-star hotel. I would say,“ Why is it not a five-star hotel? Make it one.”
What does the future hold for you and your kitchens? We are a relatively young company. I’ m just building a team, and I would like to think that my staff complement that are with me now are going to be with me in, say, five years’ time, doing better and even more new things.
We are concentrating on the modified meals as well. Our modified meals are, in our kitchens anyway, a lot more appealing than what you would find in most other facilities. ■
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