St.-Vincentius Kalmthout residential
and care centre is home to 160 residents. The centre cares mainly
for people who are semi-able or in need of care, but also for
elderly patients with dementia who come from Kalmthout and the
surrounding area.
Like every organisation in the care
sector, St-Vincentius is faced with the challenge of providing
quality meals, while keeping their food costs within the limits of
the budget set. To promote even greater cost-effectiveness,
consideration is also being given to supplying other care
organisations in the local area in the future.
Steamplicity: fresh daily and
super-fast
Medirest, which has been the catering
partner at St-Vincentius for many years, suggested starting to
provide meals with Steamplicity. Steamplicity is an innovative
cooking technique that enables meals to be steam-cooked in a
Steamplicity oven just before they are served. Now, thanks to
Steamplicity, the meals at St-Vincentius are fresh daily and can be
prepared in no time at all. It takes an average of 3 to 7 minutes
for delicious meals to emerge from the Steamplicity oven, hot and
ready to eat.
Quality at the same high level
Steamplicity meals always take account
of the basic dietary requirements that the residents have to adhere
to. And because they retain their high flavour content during the
steam-cooking process, minimal seasoning is required, so there is
no more need for preservatives, colouring agents and flavouring.
The meals are kept sugar-free so they are also suitable for
diabetics. For residents with more specific diets, meals are
prepared in a separate finishing kitchen area.
Greater flexibility in terms of choice
and timing
Working with the Steamplicity concept
makes things easy for the residents. They are able to select from a
wider range of food and can choose some of the components for each
meal themselves if they want too, such as a different vegetable. An
additional benefit is that everyone no longer has to come to the
table at the same time. This enables residents to decide for
themselves how they want to divide up their time during the day.
The system does require greater flexibility from the staff, but the
upside is that peak times at midday are less intensive than they
used to be. Better still, any member of staff can prepare a
Steamplicity meal, because the operating instructions are extremely
simple.
More and more residential and care
centres are opting for Steamplicity
Increasing numbers of residential and
care centres are opting to working entirely with Steamplicity for
preparing their meals. This is certainly the case at the Ter Linde
Residential and Care Centre (Vilvoorde), the Wedbos Residential and
Care Centre (Geel), the Ter Rooierheide Service Flats (Diepenbeek)
and the Ten Hove Residential Care Centre (Mol).
