Steamplicity launches innovative new dishes
Steamplicity launches innovative new dishes
Steamplicity, Compass Group UK & Ireland’s steam cooking system, has launched five new dishes and enhanced a further ten for its Spring and Summer menu within the Healthcare business.
Over 95,000 meals are provided each week by the innovative brand, which uses a unique patented cooking system to steam fresh and raw ingredients in under five minutes. Steamplicity is provided at 30 hospitals where Compass Group, the largest food services provider in the UK, delivers the food offer.
Product development to create the new dishes takes at least six months, involving a Compass chefs, nutritionists and dieticians, to ensure the final meals meet nutritional requirements, taste great and look good too. Due to the use of the unique steam release valve, a lot of innovation is also required with regards to the composition of each dish. The ability to cook food by steam, means Steamplicity is the only plated solution that uses fresh food as opposed to pre-frozen dishes, ensuring a high nutritional value is provided to patients. The new dishes will enable patients to benefit from a menu offering an even greater range of meals with over 30 hot meal choices.
Other advantages of Steamplicity include the ability to have meals freshly steam cooked at ward level and provided when a patient requires it, enabling the hospital site to provide patients with a hot meal 24 hours a day.
Kate Edgecombe, NPD Manager Steamplicity, commented on the menu changes: “It is incredibly exciting to launch the new and amended menu. All our efforts are focussed on providing our residents and patients with the highest quality of meals, so to see them eating and enjoying the new dishes is a fantastic feeling.
“The most important aspect of the changed menu is being able to offer our customers a greater range while delivering on their nutritional requirements. Many of the people being catered for by Steamplicity can be in hospital for a long period of time, so it is vital we can provide a varied and high quality menu.”
Steven Cenci, Managing Director, Healthcare, Compass Group UK & Ireland added “Steamplicity represents the essence of fresh and healthy dining for patients in our hospitals. It’s something that the UK has lead the way in and now this excellent, patient centred dining offer is being adopted all over the world. I’m really proud that we helped to introduce it to the NHS first.
“I challenged the team to really focus on maximising the fresh and nutritious characteristics of the unique cooking technology and the food innovation team has responded fantastically, with the new menu being the best yet.
“The most impressive aspect of Steamplicity is the ability to provide fresh and healthy food to those who require it most. Everyone acknowledges that healthy food is the best aid to patient recovery in hospital so we will continue to do our bit in helping to ‘make patients feel better’. Using Steamplicity we are able to offer highly nutritious and energising food.”
Five new dishes have been added to the menu; a new Pasta Bolognese (larger and smaller portions), Red Thai Chicken Curry, a vegan option of Vegetable and Bean Casserole and a Moroccan vegetable and chickpea soup.
A further ten improvements have been made to the menu, the most noticeable being the decision to change many of the vegetables used to vibrant premium vegetable medleys, ensuring the meals look really delicious, and an improved battered fish for the ever popular Fish and Chips dish.
A new format for the pictorial menu will also be launched for this menu refresh. The ‘flash card’ style has been well received in hospitals during trials. Staff have said how useful they are particularly with patients who are struggling to communicate; nurses and patients prefer the larger pictures and the clear font with simple description.
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