Calorie Posting in CherryOrchard Hospital Staff Restaurant HSE Pilot Scheme

2015

Rosemarie Bracken & Louise O’Reilly HSE CherryOrchard Hospital Catering Dept

6/4/2015

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Introduction

The initiation of the menucal project in Cherry Orchard Hospital evolved from

the vending project group where it was decided that Cherry Orchard Hospital

and Letterkenny Hospitals’ Staff Restaurants would, on a voluntary basis, pilot

the implementation of using Menucal.

Menu cal is a tool developed by the Public Health Nutrition (PHN) team at the

FSAI which provides guidance to Catering Staff and assists them in calculating

calories for the food they serve.

Currently, calorie menu labelling in Ireland is voluntary and there are no clear

rules on how it should be implemented. Therefore the guidelines of calorie

menu labelling were the best option available and in the future as with

‘Allergen Labelling’ will be mandatory.

Collaborative work undertaking by the FSAI and Cherry Orchard should be the

building stone for future implementation.

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DDeevveellooppiinngg aa pprroojjeecctt ppllaann

The FSAI met with the Cherry Orchard team in Aug 2014 about participating in

a pilot scheme for the HSE in a menu labelling system .i.e menucal.

We presented our staff restaurant to the FSAI and it was decided that we

would go live on 1ST Dec 2014. The working group consisted of two catering

managers whom would be assisted by the team of Cherry Orchard chefs when

required.

The FSAI provided training on the menucal system for the catering managers in

the working group who was responsible for introducing calorie posting through

menucal.

The Catering Dept had standardised recipes done for our three week menu

cycle, these were reviewed and updated by catering management and chefs

before we started any input into menucal.

We decided to do calorie posting on our entire staff menu, we organised our

menu into the following sections:

Breakfast-Hot & Cold

Fruits, Breads, Dairy

Soup & Sauces

Vegetables

Main Courses

Salads

We assigned a chef to each section to confirm ingredient use, method of

preparation and portions, with all this information we input the above into

menucal.

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Pre packed food was not included as it already displays nutrional information.

CCoommmmuunniiccaattiinngg

A member of the FSAI team and the catering manager met with the team of

chefs and catering assistants to explain the background of menucal. We

explained menucal was a calorie calculator that the FSAI has made available to

the food service industry to enable calculation of the calorie values in the food

that we sell. We portrayed that we would be using menucal as a resource to

assist our team to identify calorie values taking account of:

types and quantities of ingredient use

method of preparation

portion control through the use of specific sized utensils

Our main aim was to facilitate our customers to make informed decisions

through menucal.

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Overcoming Resistance

CherryOrchard Hospital Campus embraces changes on an ongoing basis . The

clientele have always welcomed and supported our ’Happy Heart Healthy

Eating Award’ ethos. COH Catering Services have been awarded the Happy

Heart at Work over the past decade.

The menucal was welcomed and embraced with enthusiasm and complete co

operation. Senior Management gives us their ongoing support and welcomes

all our new initiatives.

However given the Catering Managers team experience in other hospital

areas, it would be highly recommended to involve all stakeholders from the

outset and ensure good communication at all times with regard to the project

plan.

Furthermore in other areas, cognisance would need to be given to the

financial resources needed i.e. extra budget allocation for equipment and

admin resources.

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Availing of supports

Our main support was the FSAI. The FSAI consigned a group of students to

survey pre and post behavioural changes to calorie posting in Cherry Orchard.

This involved surveying customers on their eating habits on a daily basis for

both breakfast and lunch over an eight week period. These findings are due to

be published in July 2015.

In relation to support for the use of the menucal system, the system is very

user friendly, because I had received one training session from the FSAI, I

found this one training session sufficient.

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Phased implementation or big bang approach

Cherry Orchard went for the ‘big bang’ approach.

On Dec 1st, we displayed calorie posting on our entire staff menu. We felt

there would be more resistance if we phased it in.

Based on our restaurant clientele and their personal menu choices (low fat

options), we felt calorie posting would be welcomed therefore we were

confident to do the big bang approach.

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The lead into calorie posting

We went live Dec 1st, 2014. Four weeks prior, we sent an email to all Cherry

Orchard users that we would be displaying calories on our staff menu from

Dec 1st and that we were participating in a pilot scheme for the HSE.

We explained how Menucal was unveiled by the FSAI in early 2014, the

concept of menucal and how we would be using menucal as a resource to

display calories.

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Baseline Study

1. Decreased sales on certain products i.e homemade scones, sausages

with the introduction of menucal.

2. Decreased ordering through portions control, therefore a financial gain

for the budget holder. Estimated on the Cherry Orchard catering budget

of 10%/12%. This evolved from the portion control and standardised

recipes.

3. Results of surveys pending from the FSAI will give scientific findings and

evaluation of consumer food choices before and after calorie labelling.

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Signage /Service

The FSAI provided us with signage /posters on information on a person’s daily

intake see below:

We, the catering managers created and introduced our own signage at each

point of choice in the restaurant, please see attached file and menucal cards

also ,please see some examples below:

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An example of Cherry Orchard’s daily staff lunch menu

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The most important element I found was precise portion control, as the kcal

on each dish/serving utensil is measured by a specific sized utensil e.g.:

Main Course –based on 8oz spoons

Sauces-based on 4oz spoons

Soups –Based on 8oz spoons

Salad Portions i.e coleslaw ,potato salad, rice salad, pastas, egg mayo-

based on 4oz spoon

Vegetables-based on 4 oz spoons

Details on which serving spoon to use with which type of food is specified on

the staff menu (please see attached file- 3 week menu cycle). All chefs and

catering assistants were trained in this specific serving method.

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How does Calorie posting dovetail with food waste

In our opinion at Cherry Orchard Hospital, calorie posting has had a

considerable effect on food waste.

All of the food items on our staff menu are calorie posted to the consumer

according to specific portion size/utensils and we have concluded that the

consumer is more conscious of this.

Therefore when a certain dish is on, we can estimate the portions needed

for our ordering system because of the developing trends by the customer

since calorie posting was introduced. e.g;

1. Decrease in sales on homemade scones

2. Decrease in sales on certain desserts

3. Decrease sales on sausage at breakfast ,but increase in sales for

beans, rasher, poached egg

4. Increase in sales on Salad Bar

5. Decrease in sales on certain red meat products i.e. lasagnes, chilli con

carne, taco sauce

6. Increase in sales on white meat and oily fish products

7. Decrease in sales of condiments i.e. jam/marmalade portions

8. Decrease in sales on white bread product

Before calorie posting, customers were not aware of calories per portion

size, thus the sales of many different products varied in sales from day to

day, whereas, the past six months has showed more consistent trends in

sales.

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Mainstreaming Calorie Posting

All Catering Managers are further trained to update and monitor menus

(which are adjusted seasonally) using the Menucal tool.

The Menucal posting is now part of our ongoing self monitoring, staff

surveys. It also adds value to our assessment of our service deliverables for

quality, potential improvements and changes. This in turn leads to ongoing

standardisation of recipes and ordering.

Through ongoing staff training and group discussions and daily

observations on sales and customer comment, we are now mainstreaming

calorie posting.

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Top Tips

1. Introduce a group training day provided by the FSAI for Catering

Mangers on Menucal.

2. Develop a working group within a department to introduce menucal

/calorie posting to a staff restaurant.

3. Training of food service staff is essential in relation to kcal per

portion size /serving utensil size.

4. Set a realistic timeframe and launch date

5. Organise menus into sections e.g. breakfast ,main courses ,soups

,sauces etc

6. Co ordinate with Senior Hospital Management on financial resources.

7. Communicate with all hospital staff re the introduction of Menucal.

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Recommendations

1. A Menucal directive needs to become mandatory.

2. The presence of the menucal team onsite was of immense support to

the Cherry Orchard team and it would be recommended that

resources should be made available to give ongoing support and

training.

3. Standardised Recipes should be developed and centralised for the

HSE.

4. The menucal/allergen created by the FSAI team was of huge benefit

to Cherry Orchard Hospital and we recommend that it should be

utilised within the HSE.