Residents are increasingly demanding more variety, but can providers offer both culinary diversity and nutritionally rich food?

Is fresh always best? This is one of the most challenging questions facing food managers within aged care as pressure mounts to offer greater choice and variety in menu design.

After years of offering freshly cooked meals to its residents, Blue Care has decided to proceed with the construction of a centralised production kitchen to replace its existing food service model.

Pre-prepared chilled meals will be produced in bulk and sent to most of its residential services in the south east corner of Queensland within the next 12 to 18 months.

Bob Gilkes, director of organisational development at Blue Care, says the expectations of the baby boomer generation are driving the change.

“Consumers are becoming more discerning. The baby boomers are very clear that they are the customer and the customer calls the shots.”

And what they want is choice.

In the current cook fresh system, chefs are limited to offering two variations of the main meal. In a cook-chill method facilities will be able to offer at least five to seven different choices.

Residents can also decide on a daily basis what to order according to their changing appetite which eliminates the rigidity of pre-ordered meals.

“Residents can choose their meal on the day rather than decide today what they would like to eat on Saturday which creates a restaurant feel,” says Gilkes.

This flexibility, however, is also possible in the bulk service of the cook fresh method if historical forecasting is used to prepare daily menu options.

Bulk re-heating of meals can be delayed for a particular event and pre-plated chilled meals can be heated for individuals to vary dining times.

“Through cook-chill processes you are better able to meet client need through a broader time frame,” says Gilkes.

Cameron Barton, director of business development with Medirest, an external hospitality provider for the sector, agrees the future of food service in aged care lies with the a la carte menu.

The baby boomer generation, in particular, will have higher expectations than ever before. They will demand more sophisticated types of menus, wider varieties of international recipes, a la carte offerings and more than two choices at main meal, says Barton.

“The market needs to move there. If they don’t have a la carte solutions they will struggle.”

Medirest offers both the cook-chill option as well as freshly cooked meals prepared at the facility, which currently makes up 75 to 85 per cent of Medirest’s contracts.

According to Barton the cook-chill option is best suited to facilities that lack a well-equipped kitchen or are unable to employ the qualified chefs needed to staff the site.

However, he claims the reheating of prepared meals degrades the nutritional content and crispness of meals, causing many in the sector to move away from pre-cooked food.

Karen Walton, national convenor of the Dietitians Association of Australia, says both methods of food service can deliver quality meals but this is dependent on effectively managing the food quality and safety challenges unique to each.

“Both can provide an appropriate product it just depends on how it is done. A combination of cook fresh and cook-chill dishes methods are sometimes used,” she says.

Chilling, storing and reheating meals in the cook-chill method will lead to nutritional losses. But nutrient breakdown is not exclusive to the pre-cooked option. Losses are also experienced in the hot holding of freshly cooked food.

Freshly cooked meals are subject to a 90 minute rule, says Walton.

“Cook fresh methods appear to have less nutrient loss as long as they are plated within 90 minutes of cooking. If hot holding exceeds 90 minutes, then the meals will have more nutrient loss than in cook-chill. Obviously as short a hot holding and plating time as possible is preferred.”

The cook fresh model therefore disadvantages larger facilities where extended hot food holding cannot be avoided.

Gilkes says the scarcity of quality chefs has contributed to Blue Care’s decision to establish a centralised food production system. But he insists quality is not being sacrificed for convenience.

There is a real fear factor around pre-cooked meals but a lack of evidence to back up the assumption, says Gilkes.

A cook-chill approach to food service offers flexibility, consistency and stringent standards of quality and food safety control. Regeneration ovens to reheat precooked meals are also widely used in the hospitality industry, he says.

Freshly cooked food loses its temperature quickly, which can affect the quality of food offered. Those served last cannot be guaranteed they’ll receive the same hot meal as those at the beginning of the service.

“In the current cook fresh system I could not put my hand on my heart and say that every resident in Blue Care is having the same high quality experience,” says Gilkes.

The move to a cook-chill approach will be costly but is the only feasible model to support the increasing demand for culinary diversity, he says.

However, varied menus are not the only demand from baby boomers.

A study of nearly 3000 baby boomers conducted by Dr Rodney Jilek found 99.2 per cent of participants surveyed indicated an expectation that meals would be prepared fresh on site by either a qualified chef or cook.

Asked to categorise food services as basic, extra or unacceptable, cook-chill meals were also rated as unacceptable by 59 per cent of participants.

Walton agrees the presentation of freshly cooked food is hard to beat. “Food has an important social aspect and freshly cooked food is more homely. It’s familiar. The taste and feel of the food is appealing. The size of the facility, however, does not always make this possible.”

However, Barton believes that an emerging trend in food technology may provide an important third solution.

Using a steam pressure method, prepackaged meals can be cooked for the first time on site using microwave technology which eliminates the effects of reheating. Fresh food in sealed containers is cooked from raw to retain their nutritional value and flavour.

Currently, only a handful of aged care facilities use this method, which is labelled by Medirest as Steamplicity. Barton predicts this type of food technology will make up 10 per cent of the aged care market within the next three years.

The steam pressure method, however, has its limitations and is unsuited to cooking fried food such as fish and chips or pastry-based dishes.

Liz Goldsmith, hospitality manager with Blue Cross in Victoria, still champions the benefits of an in-house kitchen team who prepare meals fresh daily.

An internally staffed on-site kitchen offers a greater degree of operational control and accountability, she says.

Kitchen staff are more easily integrated into the philosophy and vision of the facility and participate in regular in-house training sessions led by management. “They are part of our team,” says Goldsmith.

Regardless of which cooking style is chosen, standard recipes, regular menu review and resident feedback systems are a must, says Walton.