Cornwall Care Make Nutrition Count

But the challenge of providing the right nutritional balance for clients across the charity's range of operations can prove tricky. "We have so many different conditions to cater for and have to provide menu options to cover everything from gluten-free and vegetarian diets to diabetes," says Allen. "Diet plays such an important role in the quality of a person's life that getting this right is crucial. "For an average 75-year-old man there is a daily target of 1,955 calories. Now, we buy fresh when possible, we make an abundance of homemade foods, but how could we be sure our patients, residents and customers get the right levels of nutrition?" The task has been made easier for her catering team since the care service started to use the K2N program from the Country Range Group. It calculates nutritional values of recipes and menus and contains more than 4,000 ingredients, menu plans, plus hundreds of set recipes, including those for special diets. Adds Allen: "We are able to plan the ingredients to make everything from soups, drinks and hot puddings to lamb and vegetarian dishes. The results have been more than pleasing with both the food operators and the residents." A web-based program, features include a stock management system and cost-control tools for pricing and margin calculations. However, the main focus of the software is to help caterers build nutritionally balanced recipes and menu cycles. Cornwall Care provides a wealth of care services, which include 18 care homes across the region, some with nursing support, as well as a range of community services. More than 1,200 people are employed by the charity, which supports over 1,000 older people.