Fish polonaise with lemon or coq au vin? No, these aren’t the daily specials at a fine-dining restaurant. They’re now on the menu at Toronto’s Providence Healthcare after a foodservice makeover by Mark Wilson, president of Mark Wilson Culinary Consulting in Toronto.
Like many healthcare facilities, Providence Healthcare, a rehabilitation and long-term care facility, was faced with shrinking food budgets. The result was using more pre-packaged meals at a time when patients require fresh, healthy food and have special dietary requirements. Hired to transform the menu, Wilson got the cooks, well, cooking again.
“Many of the cooks have been there for 20 or 30 years and were mostly unmotivated to do better,” says Wilson. “They were doing the same menu over and over again … and instead of using their skills they were basically opening and re-therming prepared products. There was no passion or enjoyment in their work.”
From September to December 2012, Wilson worked with the Nutrition and Food Services Department at Providence Healthcare to retrain staff, improve the quality and variety of the food and enhance the overall dining experience for patients and residents.
Wilson trained staff on better plate presentation and scratch cooking, replacing pre-assembled meals with healthy, freshly cooked items (pictured above). The final 50 recipes take into account allergies, vegetarian diets, food intolerances and medical requirements — on a budget of $7.46 for three meals a day per person.
“Patients have very specific needs, but certain dishes cross a number of different diets,” says Wilson. Given the tight budget, and need for efficiency, a dish that’s gluten-free will also be vegetarian and low sodium. “The goal is to cross as many diets as you can with one recipe.”
The trend for allergy-free, low sodium and healthier foods is increasing, not just in healthcare, but throughout the foodservice industry, says Wilson. “Chefs need to look at this closely and work with their distributors and manufacturers to find solutions.”
The Salt Connection
According to the Toronto-based Dietitians of Canada association, the average Canadian takes in 3,400 mg of salt per day, more than twice the recommended limit. And, high intake of sodium increases the risk of high blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease, stroke and kidney disease. Health Canada reports about 77 per cent of the sodium Canadians consume comes from packaged, processed and restaurant foods. In 2010, The Sodium Working Group, chaired by Health Canada, released its recommendations for salt reduction after two-and-half-years of work. Among the recommendations, were voluntary reduction of sodium levels in restaurant foods and mandatory sodium and caloric information to be placed prominently at chain restaurants. In February 2011, Health Canada quietly disbanded The Sodium Working Group, a major cause for concern among health advocacy groups.
Hold the Gluten
Restaurant operators are getting wise to wheat. The rise of celiac disease, along with a general concern about wheat consumption, has created a meteoric rise in demand for gluten-free products.
According to new data from The NPD Group, interest in gluten- and wheat-free menu items has increased 137 per cent in the last three years. “We have been tracking the eating habits of Canadians for 20 years, and the one consistency is that people are doing their best to make healthier choices, both at home and when dining out,” says Robert Carter, executive director of Foodservice at The NPD Group, while commenting on the company’s CREST MenuTrack study. “Whether the decision to eat gluten-free meals is the result of actual intolerances or simply interest in exploring a new diet, the fact remains that there is a very real demand for these options, particularly in the restaurant industry.”
Restaurant operators are responding to the increased demand for gluten-free menu options. According to NPD’s MenuTrack, which analyzes menu trends of the top 53 Canadian restaurants, there were 36 per cent more mentions of “gluten free” on menus in 2012 than there were on menus in 2011. “Gluten free” is also the top menu item health claim, with 4.8 mentions per menu, compared to the next distant health claim, “low calorie,” which has one mention per menu.
In April, Surrey, B.C.-based De Dutch Pannekoek House Restaurants launched a gluten-free menu at its 23 locations. Gluten-free pannekoeks, made with rice flour, are made in advance and frozen. When a customer orders one, added ingredients such as fruit and meat are placed on top of the pannekoek. (For traditional pannekoeks, which come in 50 varieties, the ingredients are cooked within.) “We were seeing more requests for gluten-free items, so it was filling a need in the market,” says Pamela Waring, marketing manager at De Dutch. “There’s always that one customer in a group of four who has an issue.”
Mark Wilson, president of Toronto’s Mark Wilson Culinary Consulting, says offering gluten-free items doesn’t have to mean reinventing the wheel. “If you’ve got an appetizer that’s not selling, switch out the regular flour for chickpea flour, because then you’re appealing to gluten-free and celiac customers.”
Even having just one or two gluten-free options could save potential lost business. “It answers the question of the [big] group who calls and says, ‘one of us is gluten-free. What can you do for us?’” says Wilson. “If you don’t have an answer, they will find someone who does.”
