practical living
You’re the founder of Textured Concept
Foods. How did you find yourself in this
niche part of the industry?
I’m a chef. I have been cooking all my life.
I come from a fine-dining environment.
I travelled for many years, and when I
arrived back in Australia with my wife and
wanted to settle down, the only type of
available role for a chef was in aged care,
working 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, having
your weekends off, etc.
That sounds pretty good for a chef.
For a chef, it was pretty good. But going
into that field, my eyes were closed at the
beginning as to what type of food I would
be cooking and what I was expected to
present on a plate.
It was astonishing to find that the food
the people on textured diets were being
served was second-grade, and I say that
from dealing with these things in my own
nursing home. I was a chef dealing with
ailing residents. I had to cook breakfast,
morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea,
desserts, etc. Then I had to try and create
three different textures of food for each
item on the menu. There wasn’t enough
time in the day to do it correctly and safely.
So these residents were getting a meal that
was rushed and had no TLC in it. That was
happening day after day.
But what I found astonishing was the
presentation of the meal. You had no
option but to take an ice-cream scoop and
basically just put it into a container with this
vitamised product and place it on a plate.
And your time to do all of that was
really limited. So that’s how I found myself
looking at different avenues to present this
type of food, and to present the textured
foods we’re doing now.
I had run into a dietitian; her name was
Lisa Sossen. She’s my business partner, and
we looked at each other and said we knew
that we could do something better and
more nutritious and more presentable on
the plate. It was just a matter of knowing
how we could do that and putting some
time frames in line.
As a professional chef, how do you
manage all of that?
I still am hands-on, and the company is
only five or six years old, but I find one
of the ways to keep the kitchen and
manufacturing part of the business moving
forward is to keep working with your staff:
training them, working closely with them.
I don’t have any other qualified chefs
working with me, but I have a couple of
good cooks. My production manager has
spent many years cooking in a kitchen, so
she has a lot of experience.
As for ‘qualified’ chef, I mean when I did
my four-year apprenticeship. And it took
a lot of time to get through that. I have a
few cooks who have done Certificate III in
Hospitality, and they understand the basics
of cooking and how we need to get to the
end result.
Are there ways you think home carers
can make food more appealing for
the people they look after who need
texture‑modified diets?
Anyone with a bit of understanding of what
a textured meal is, and an understanding
of food in general, can do amazing things
with textured foods. But it takes time.
What is a basic meal someone could do?
In a home? They could do a nice casserole,
some mashed potato, some vegetables,
which of course you could vitamise. You’d
need to put them into ice-cream scoops,
or you could pipe them onto a plate.
You could do a roast. Again, if you’re
going to vitamise roast, you’ve got to add
all your liquids and everything else to it to
vitamise it a lot easier.
You’ve also got to know when your
product is cooked enough to be vitamised,
without cooking too long to remove the
nutritional value out of them.
So, yes, you can do them in your home.
As for getting the presentation right, that
becomes a lot more difficult, and you really
need to understand textured foods and
have a cooking background.
As this becomes more talked about and
used, what kind of feedback are you
getting from residents and providers?
They’re enjoying the product we’re offering
them. They’re finding it very easy to use
and efficient at their end. I’m talking about
the chefs and the cooks in the kitchens
that open our packages and put them on
plates. They find it very easy to use, easy to
plate, easy to heat. We’re also getting great
feedback from the people who are eating
the product.
I’m getting quite a bit of positive
feedback from some of the catering
departments and the owners of businesses,
that their residents are starting to put
on weight and are eating more food.
And they’re feeling a lot better within
themselves, because they’re eating a meal
that looks correct, looks nice, tastes nice
and is nutritionally sound as well.
I saw a statistic that up to 60 per cent
of aged care residents, as well as some
patients with throat and mouth cancers
and many other ailments and disabilities,
need texture-altered foods. And I believe
you’ve expanded your kitchen recently.
Have you come up with any innovations
because you’re seeing this higher
demand? What are you doing to cope?
We have, yes. We’ve moved into larger
premises now, where we can probably
multiply our business three times quite
easily. We intend to do that. We’ve only
It was astonishing
to find that the food the
people on textured diets
were being served was
second-grade.
been here for eight weeks, so we are
now meeting our orders fully. We’re now
getting them out on time; we’re now
settled as a business.
We aren’t going to be doing much for
the rest of the year. There are only four
weeks left, someone reminded me, until
Christmas day. However, we have some
great innovations coming up next year.
We’re looking at doing a fruit salad and
an Aussie meat pie. We’re going to add a
couple more desserts to our range. Even
winter desserts. We’re also going to try to
make a texture-modified sandwich that can
be purchased. There are some great ideas
coming up that we’re going to attempt to
get into next year.
What’s the future for texture-altered
foods? Are there ways to make it better,
tastier, quicker, easier?
I would say all of the above. Myself and my
production manager, Angela, still spend
quite a bit of time working on the floor,
working with the staff, and I’ve got 22 staff.
We are always being innovative. We’re
thinking, we’re getting better; our recipes
have probably been adapted twice this year
to add more seasoning and other bits and
pieces into it.
Long term, I would like to see some
automation in some of the processes
we do.
Also, I think bringing some ethnic foods
into the business will assist us in getting to
different cultures, which is needed. ■
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