Due to a basic lack of information, resources and available training for catering staff in care settings, many residents with swallowing difficulties (dysphagia) who require texture modified diets will be served pureed food which is shapeless, tasteless, nutritionally deficient and visually unpalatable.
With dysphagia affecting up to 70% of residents in care homes and 50% of these thought to be malnourished, this is a real challenge facing care providers today.
Hcsuk, passionate about providing innovative products into care homes, have a complete solution to assist care providers improve the quality and presentation of pureed meals, thereby increasing appetite, quality of life and dignity for the people they support.
MD Jo Bonser commented, ‘Our range of food moulds, coupled with a food thickener, help to shape pureed meat, vegetables and fruit back to how they should look, creating more visually appealing and tasty meals.
In addition we have training packages available run by experienced care industry chef/trainers, to help educate care home staff in the processes involved in making and serving pureed meals.’ Feedback from customers over the last 3 years of supplying the food moulds tells us that training of all staff including managers, catering and care staff is vital in order to achieving the right results and that everyone needs to ‘buy in’ to this concept for it to succeed.
Our last workshop entitled ‘How to improve the presentation of pureed meals’ attracted 2 award winning chefs as delegates and we are extremely proud that Malcolm Shipton, of Wren Hall Nursing Home has gone on from our training to become Dysphagia Chef of the Year, and Pete Radford of Milford Care Group was recently filmed for local news channels on television talking about the importance of the presentation of pureed meals and demonstrating his culinary skills which have been viewed over 3.5 million times on Facebook!
Both Malcolm and Pete agree that our workshop gave them their inspiration to go on and achieve great results within their own care homes and also to help others.
We are therefore delighted to announce a date for our next workshop, following unprecedented requests from customers, for help and support to improve the presentation of their pureed meals. Our trainer for the day will be Preston Walker, a very well known and respected care chef in the industry, who also runs his own family owned care home and is passionate about sharing his knowledge and skills about Dysphagia.
The date will be April 25th and the workshop will be held in Mansfield in Nottingham. To register your interest please email sales@hcsuk.co.uk and put Food Mould Workshop in the subject title.
Can hcsuk help you to shape up your pureed meals?