The Latest Culinary Workshops

The Avery Culinary Workshops run nationwide for our Head Chefs are now in their third year, with over 45 chefs attending the most recent forums. They are a source of interactive learning, networking, team building, developing new craft skills, confidence building and brainstorming; they are also a good way to receive feedback from our Head Chefs, which enables us to continually support them. The latest workshops covered such topics as a thoughtful approach to special diets, the global challenge of food waste, and diabetes.

An understanding of type 1 and type 2 diabetes was shared, based on the Diabetes UK guidelines, with our Chefs learning that type 2 diabetes accounts for over 90% of all cases in the UK and is largely related to increasing obesity. They learnt how residents with diabetes can benefit from a normal healthy diet with adjustments, and how most desserts can still be enjoyed when reducing the sugar content by 25% to 50%.

Dementia Dining

Heather Perkins, Dementia Support Advisor, shared her knowledge on person-centred dementia care. It is important that we are able to provide excellent food and dining experiences for residents living with dementia; it is, therefore, essential that our chefs have knowledge and understanding of the effects of dementia so they can deliver the correct nutrition and choices, such as finger foods. A lively practical session was then held preparing finger foods for residents.

Waste Not

We also focused on the importance of food waste and waste management. With the global population set to rise to over 9.5 billion by 2050, there are huge pressures facing the world’s food system and business as usual is not an option. The food waste facts are startling.

At Avery, we are already playing our part in reducing food waste and will be introducing a number of further initiatives in 2019 as we recognise the importance of everyone playing their part in this global environmental challenge.

The workshops were a great success and we look forward to holding more forums in 2019.

Food Waste Facts

• One-third of the world’s food is wasted; around 1.3 billion tonnes per year, which could feed 3 billion people or ten times the population of the USA.
• Almost 50% of the total amount of food thrown away in the UK comes from our homes.
• 7kg of food waste per day for a large group of 50+ care homes can equate to 132,429kg a year for UK waste, or the equivalent weight of 368,000 London buses.
• Food waste generates 3.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, which accelerates global climate change

Article by Simon Lawrence, Group Culinary Manager, for Welcome Home Issue 8.