From Toby Slaughter
In March, Members of the East Anglia Branch held a meeting at the main distribution depot of Hobart UK in Peterborough.
The Branch has had discussions about attracting its next generation of Members, so we decided to throw open our meeting to the Chefs Circle. Its members are assembled from the ranks of team leaders and chefs from community hospitals which are served by Suffolk Support Services.
The meeting began with a presentation from Hobart about its dishwashing range, after which we moved into the company’s impressive demonstration kitchen for a series of talks by suppliers, arranged by Steve Espindola of 3663. There was a presentation from Unilever about nutrition and a demonstration of recipes and ready-made Knorr stocks and sauces. These were cooked with fresh ingredients to produce a range of first-rate samples for all to taste.
Sue Skinner from Nestle demonstrated cold mix mashed potato and introduced the group to their versatile Mediterranean tomato sauce. Soft and modified texture meals feature heavily in our hospitals, and a range of individual portion meals was provided by Mrs Gill’s Foods.
Hobart’s Regional Sales Manager Steve Martin then gave Members a highly informative tour of the distribution depot, spares storage area and training area for service engineers.
Finally, Simon Quinton from Hobart’s demonstration team showed us a selection of the many dishes that can be prepared in pressure steamers and combination ovens (I never would have thought of using a combi-oven to boil eggs!).
Our thanks to Steve Martin, Simon Quinton and Steve Espindola for the excellent hospitality that they extended to us during our meeting in Peterborough.
I for one was totally full up at the end of the day, and I also know that many of the Chefs Circle went away with some good ideas to put to use in their kitchens to help improve the service of meals to patients at their hospitals.
Branch Minutes
Copies of all the Branch minutes from the dates listed can be downloaded as a Microsoft Word File by clicking on the link below.
