FH1117

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RE-THINKING
RETHERM
Brad McKay, CEO
at Healthcare
Foodservices Inc. in
Ottawa believes the
first generation of
feeding healthcare
residents on an
institutional level
— the cold-plate
retherm process
— is nearing a
close. Here, food
is manufactured
offsite and shipped
to a hospital in bulk
where it’s plated,
reheated and
served. In its day, it
couldn’t be beat for
a combination of
quality and cost.
But people are
bored with coldplate
retherm,
McKay says. Enter
the Combitherm
oven, says John
Curtis, national
director of Culinary
Services at Revera
Retirement. These
devices, which
replace a convection
oven, kettle,
steamer, fryer,
smoker and dehydrater
“are a great
staple piece of
kitchen equipment.
That’s part of the
way we help our
costs. Cooking the
right way with the
right equipment to
get the full value.”
In the front-ofthe-house,
Curtis
acknowledges
the point-of-sale
advances that have
facilitated tableside
service. All of
his company’s new
builds will outfit
servers with tablets
loaded with menu
descriptions and
illustrations, along
with real-time client
information on
dietary restrictions.
about. It’s like a cruise ship. You eat,
you complain about being stuffed, then
you talk about what’s for dinner.”
“A few years ago, retirement living
had a reputation in the general
marketplace for food that was bland,
straightforward and overly preprepared,”
says John Curtis, national
director of Culinary Services at Revera
Retirement. “But we’re making great
strides in fresh, from-scratch cooking.
We’re transitioning [far] away from
people’s perceptions.”
Hiring top-quality kitchen talent is
a big part of that, says Curtis. Many of
the culinary professionals at Revera’s
131 cross-Canada residences are Red
Seal-certified chefs. It’s the same story
at other retirement residences, where
the foodservice arm is upping its game
by hiring chefs who cut their teeth at
luxury private enterprises to man their
kitchens. Paul Marshall, the executive
chef at Westerleigh Parc in Vancouver,
is fresh off a 35-year run in Vancouver’s
luxury-hotel kitchens. In 2015 and
2016, he scored the top spot at the Best
of the West annual food competition
—the sole contestants representing a
retirement community. “We must’ve
shocked the hell out of the chefs there
from all the leading restaurants in the
North Shore,” Marshall says.
Shifting their talents to retirement
communities is a natural move for
career chefs, says Bailey. After years of
enduring restaurant hours and forfeiting
quality of life, a post with a retirement
home looks good. Marshall calls
his move to Parc “the most gratifying
thing I’ve ever done.” Cooking opportunities
at retirement communities are
still pretty unexplored, he says, but are
evolving. And Marshall’s doing his part.
“I know most of the chefs who operate
professional cooking schools and this
is definitely a career path. You can put
retirement communities on the same
level as restaurants and hotels.”
And this category of chef still gets
to innovate. In fact, it’s expected of
them. A late-summer meal on the
Westerleigh’s dinner menu featured
a duck-confit crêpe appetizer, and a
choice of an anchochili
chicken casserole
with saffron rice or
fresh haddock with a
Moroccan-preserved
lemon and green-olive
vinaigrette.
Another development
on the retirement
front includes a movement
to replace the
three daily meals with
on-demand eating.
The single dining room is being augmented
by multiple dining opportunities,
including on-site bistros where
residents can grab a snack or a beer.
“If you’re a resident, we recognize that
sometimes it’s nice to eat in a different
environment,” says Curtis. Revera’s
three new residences set to open in the
spring — in Edmonton, Regina and
Ajax, Ont. — will feature bistros with
grab-and-go counters, outdoor patios
and pubs, along with full-service dining
rooms. “That’s the retirement community
of the future.”
In-house Versus Outsourced
Foodservice in a healthcare setting
is “in transition,” says Michael May,
vice-president of Operations at Nutra
Services Inc., a large dining and nutritonal
services-contracting company
focusing on the seniors’ market. “While
the ’80s and ’90s were all about making
food offsite and operating ‘kitchenless
facilities,’ there has recently been more
focus on in-house prepared foods.”
According to fs Strategy Inc.’s 2017
Canadian Institutional Foodservice
Market Report, Canadian hospitals outsource
30 per cent of their food prep,
LTCs outsource 14.2 per cent and 13.1
per cent of retirement homes contract
their foodservice out.
There are pros and cons to both
paths, with the relief that comes with
transferred oversight of responsibility
being the biggest tick in favour of
retaining outsiders. “It can be a very
formulaic thing, and these operators
are great at cranking out a program,”
says Maharaj. “Having someone walk
in and offer you a turnkey solution for
your food is a gift.”
More than that, says May, outsourcing
buys peace of mind around food
safety, reduces liability for the home
and exposes clients to the collective
knowledge of a large company with
developed policies and procedures,
menus, volume-purchasing opportunities
and external corporate support.
But at the end of the day, says
McKay, there’s actually scant economic
advantage to either option. Surveys
his company has conducted show
contracted hospitals compared to ones
that prepare all food under their roof
experience no difference in either performance
or patient satisfaction.
Still, Maharaj urges health institutions
to do it themselves — and to
do it mindfully. “The problem is that
foodservice isn’t aligned with the
hospital’s organizational values, the
commitment to excellence that oversees
care and research is not applied to
foodservices. What needs to happen is
for a hospital to say ‘this is our vision
for food, this is the role we believe
food plays in nurturing wellness.’ Don’t
leave your vision in the hands of a
third-party operator.”
And servers and chefs at a residence
get to know their clients better this
way. “We’re in your home,” Curtis says.
“We worry that with outsourcing, you
lose that personal touch. Our chefs
know how Mr. Curtis likes his eggs and
when in the meal to bring him his coffee.
That would be hard to duplicate
when you outsource.” FH
NOVEMBER 2017 FOODSERVICE AND HOSPITALITY 45