“Healthy ageing redefined” is the motto of IHHC Platinum Supporter Nutritious Cuisine, which produces a range of IDDSI compliant complete meal solutions for the health and aged care sector, across categories including PU4 (pureed), MM5 (minced and moist), SB6 (soft and bite size) and EC7 (regular easy to chew).

Nutritious Cuisine prides itself on handmade, clean label meals packed with flavour as well as nutrition. To find out more about its innovative solutions, we spoke to Nutritious Cuisine’s founder Rodger Graf.

Rodger is a chef by trade and this August will celebrate 50 years in the industry. He undertook his apprenticeship at Tasmania, training at Drysdale House with highly qualified European chefs.

“I was influenced by one particular chef, Bob Fielding, whose apprenticeship had been spent on cruise liners,” Rodger remembers. “His whole mindset was around expanding your horizons and thinking outside the box – because the ship would come into port, and the kitchen team would have to source whatever ingredients were available locally and then do something amazing with them. That ethos has always stuck with me, the desire to innovate – cooking is still a passion for me today and I feel like I’ve never worked a day in my life!”

Rodger established Creative Cuisine in 1993, utilising the latest techniques and equipment and fresh local ingredients to produce delicious clean label foodservice solutions. Based in Brisbane, the company has also supplied to hotels, restaurants and airlines, along with 11 Indy 300s on the Gold Coast.

Nutritious Cuisine’s focus on health and aged care began some 14 years ago, when Rodger was asked to undertake an analysis of an aged care site’s foodservice operation. “Out of that I came on board as a consultant on aged care catering and recognised there was a need for better quality, clean label food made to a culinary standard, which at the same time was nutritionally balanced and allergen aware. So we formulated a catalogue of 700 different meal items – then when IDDSI was introduced we applied those same criteria across four IDDSI levels.”

As a chef Rodger has always been committed to clean label food – “we’ve been organically certified since around 1996, it’s always been part of our key ethos. ‘Good food, simply done well’ is what we’re all about.”

Out of Nutritious Cuisine’s 700 product lines, 280 are current at any one time – “we have 70 lines in pureed, 70 in minced and moist, 70 in soft and bite-sized and 70 in regular easy to chew (which are normal everyday foods of a soft and tender texture). We recognised that we needed to offer that much variety in order to service our customer base of health and aged care across the typical four week rotational menu. We are the only company in Australia to service all levels of IDDSI – whatever we produce in regular we also offer in an IDDSI equivalent.”

The company’s meals are produced at its 2700sqm plant in Brisbane which is capable of producing 50 tonnes of finished product per week. “We have full third party HACCP accreditation with two quality assessors on site so one is supervising production all the time. I think currently we have about 12 chefs on staff, including myself, and our general manager is a food engineer who leads the team extremely well. Everyone is passionate about what they do, which is terrific, and we supply nationally across Australia.”

Supplying to a health or aged care operation typically begins with a site visit and/or discussion at either the corporate or individual site level. “Basically we need to understand the goals and aspirations of the kitchen team for their clients – what they’re trying to achieve and what restrictions they’ve identified in achieving those goals. Once we understand these, along with what equipment they have and their food choices and preferences, then we’re able to tailor solutions to meet their needs. It’s all about ensuring that the outcome they’re providing their clients, whether in hospital or in an aged care setting, is the best standard it can possibly be.”

One of the innovations which sets Nutritious Cuisine’s IDDSI PU4 (pureed) and MM5 (minced and moist) food apart is that the company has developed its own vegan, allergen free stabiliser. “Most suppliers use a commercial stabiliser based on agar or guar, but ours is more robust, which means it will hold at up to 100°C. So you can put our PU4 food in a combi steamer and it won’t drop or melt, plus it’s allergen free.

“With our moulded meals, the packaging itself is the mould and you can remove one piece at a time – you don’t need to use the whole packet at once, and we can get a lot of pieces into a small carton because we pack them down tightly. It’s designed to be very cost-effective and all the packaging is fully recyclable.

“For our SB6 (soft and bite size) and EC7 (regular easy to chew) meals, we steam bake our vegies and sous vide our meats so there’s no nutrient loss.

“Otherwise, when you’re boiling food you tend to lose a lot of water soluble nutrients. These meals are sent to our customers in thermoform packs, which ensures a low carbon footprint and a great chilled shelf life of several months. You don’t need to freeze them, just store them in the fridge until opened.”

Rodger and his team have recently been working with another of IHHC’s Platinum Supporters, kitchen equipment supplier UNOX, supplying product for UNOX’s pressure steamer on demand service for hospital room service. “Using the UNOX pressure steamer we can produce an IDDSI meal from frozen to tray in nine minutes. The steamer has 10 individually programmable trays so you can have 10 orders come in at 10 different times and have them all running concurrently for service.

“Our product holds up in the pressure steamer, it doesn’t drop out and the combination of these innovative technologies is really changing the face of what you can do with texture modified on demand. Typically you might have 45 minutes from order to delivery, with 30 minutes of that taken up with trolley movement so the poor old kitchen has a 15 minute allocation out of that 45, but we’ve managed to get it down to nine. That gives the chef an extra four minutes to plate and garnish.”

In recent years Nutritious Cuisine has been recognised with many industry awards, including a National Food Innovation Award and several Fine Food Best of Show awards. Rodger and his team also remain committed to supporting the pursuit of excellence within the industry, as exemplified by Nutritious Cuisine’s sponsorship of the Rosemary Anne Pirie OAM Award – the highest accolade the IHHC bestows – at last year’s National Awards presentation.

“I believe we’re all put on this earth to make a difference and that’s the ethos behind Nutritious Cuisine,” Rodger says. “There’s nothing more enjoyable than eating a really well prepared meal, and if you’re infirm or feeling poorly, it’s even nicer to have something presented that looks as good as it tastes. The fact that we’re able to make a difference to people in health and aged care is very rewarding.”

Visit www.nutritiouscuisine.com.au to find out more and download a list of available products.