The catering team at Surrey based maritime charity, The Royal Alfred Seafarers’ Society, has been crowned best in the sector at this year’s Care Home Catering Awards.
The Awards, which celebrate chefs and catering teams throughout the care sector, recognised the Society’s team led by Matt Goodman, who took home the Care Home Catering Team of the Year Award.
The team were acknowledged for their emphasis on building strong relationships with residents and visitors whilst supporting the work of the wider nursing care team by ensuring mealtimes and nutrition are a key part of the care delivered at the Society’s care home Belvedere House.
The Royal Alfred Seafarers’ Society is a registered charity and was established in 1865. Its residential and nursing care home, Belvedere House, provides nursing, dementia, and respite care to retired seafarers and residents of non-seafaring backgrounds from across the UK.
Matt Goodman has been Catering Manager at the home for eight years. His team focuses on creating exciting, nutritious and tasty bespoke meals for all the residents in the home, hosting quarterly resident meetings to discuss menus, regular tasting sessions and catering surveys to get feedback on ideas, ensuring all residents are involved in creating menus of food they love.
The team has also introduced technology to ensure information is kept up-to-date and use a web-based nutritional management system that allows them to cater for different dietary requirements in the home. The system helps to identify allergens in all the food and flags real-time allergens to provide traffic light nutritional reporting on all stock items, recipes and menus.
The home has a specialised dementia unit and mealtimes can be an area of concern for those living with dementia so it is important for the team to ensure mealtimes are made easier when communication and motor difficulties can seriously affect how food is consumed.
Matt Goodman, Catering Manager at The Royal Alfred Seafarers’ Society, said: “Winning the Care Home Catering Team of the Year Award means so much as I know how dedicated all of the team are in ensuring residents get the most nutritious meals. We pride ourselves on the personalised care offered at the Society and believe it is very important to incorporate residents feedback and ideas into the catering plans. The team ensure that mealtimes are an enjoyable aspect of the day for residents by implementing creative ideas such as themed events and BBQs in the summer.
“It really is a testament to the Society as a workplace as it has a culture of togetherness and a strong programme of training and development and I am so happy that I get to be a part of this amazing team.”
Chief Executive of the Society, Commander Brian Boxall-Hunt, said: “I am extremely proud of Matt and the catering team, it is always great when our staff get the recognition they deserve and how fantastic that we have another win under our belt. Everyone here at the Society works tirelessly to ensure the residents receive the best possible care, and that includes providing exciting and delicious food that caters to a range of differing needs – it is not an easy job but luckily we have an excellent team providing outstanding, around-the-clock care to all residents.”
To find out more about the work of The Royal Alfred Seafarers’ Society visit the charity’s website (www.royalalfredseafarers.co.uk). To keep up to date with the latest news from the Society, follow and like the official Society Facebook page.
