{"id":36686,"date":"2025-08-14T17:54:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T21:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=36686"},"modified":"2025-08-21T15:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T19:04:07","slug":"southlake-challenges-ideas-of-hospital-food-with-complete-culinary-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/southlake-challenges-ideas-of-hospital-food-with-complete-culinary-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Southlake challenges ideas of hospital food with complete culinary transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The mere mention of \u201chospital food\u201d can conjure up, for some, images of a mushy, beige blandness \u2013 but that idea has been thoroughly challenged by Southlake Health in a complete transformation of their culinary experience for patients, their families, and staff alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gone are the days of pre-made, warmed-up fare. In are scratch-made recipes designed to meet the individual nutritional and cultural needs of those they serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New mealtime experiences were celebrated at the Newmarket-based hospital last week, the culmination of a project that began in 2023, guided by both patient needs and survey feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first step was the opening of Southlake\u2019s Carvery & Bakery, which features fresh-roasted carved meats prepared on site, fresh salads, soups and sandwiches and more. The next step was the re-opening of the fully-renovated on-site Subway location, followed by the launch of online ordering, a refreshed patio, full-service Starbucks and Tim Hortons locations, and, in December of last year, the opening of Aquene Caf\u00e9, the hospital\u2019s main cafeteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newly-expanded cafeteria now includes the Chef\u2019s Table, offering a scratch-made rotating menu, a market with grab-and-go fare, Roots & Seeds, which serves up customizable bowls and wraps, pizzeria San Marzano, and Grill & Go, described as \u201ca contemporary dining experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping Southlake Health realize their gourmet goals was food service company Compass Group Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having multiple options on-site allows the hospital to meet the needs of everyone they serve, and it also gives them additional flexibility to meet individual nutritional needs \u2013 an essential component of recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith patients, as part of that healing journey, that recovery piece, overall meal consumption is very important, right?\u201d says Brielle Perl, Dietician and Director of Marketing, Nutrition and Support, with Compass. \u201cIt\u2019s the fuel to our body to help our patients heal. For all of our main entrees, we had a protein goal, working with our culinary team to ensure we had over 20 grams of protein in each of our entrees, including breakfast. Certainly for lunch and dinner, those are easier targets to meet, but at breakfast time, we wanted to offer a hearty meal as well as ensure we had the appropriate amount of calories on our menus as well. It was a collaborative approach with the clinical dieticians at the hospital, as well as our culinary team with Compass, to really ensure that we\u2019re providing nutrient-adequate meals to our patients to get them back on their feet and back to their everyday lives outside our hospital walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we collaborated with Southlake, we really looked at the community, talked about the nutritional background of the menu, but we also looked at the diversity of the culture within the community. That allowed us the flexibility to really create a menu that was specific to Southlake. Looking at the diversity [we asked], \u2018What do they want to eat?\u2019 If we put something in front of them, it could have 100 grams of protein, but if they don\u2019t consume it, they don\u2019t really get the protein and they don\u2019t get the benefit for that healing process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through this feedback, such dishes as the Asian-inspired chicken congee and a Persian-influenced koobideh, a type of lamb kebab, have found their place on the menu among North American favourites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feedback from patients, families and staff alike, adds Johnny Grajcar, Southlake\u2019s Director of Support Services, helped them reimagine their menu from all points of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne [piece of feedback] that comes to mind was anecdotal feedback around when you\u2019re in the hospital and you\u2019re taking medication, your tastebuds aren\u2019t exactly the same,\u201d he says. \u201cUnderstanding that what you like traditionally might change and evolve. I think that our flexibility and our work with our dieticians allowed for more of that specified opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA survey was put out and we had 2,000 respondents. Top of the list was we needed to have a Starbucks, so we needed to figure out how we could fit that into our new system. Then it was more updated menu offerings in our other locations other than our franchise table. The retail side started earlier than the patient side\u2026 the patient side started in December of last year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the patient side began to roll out, Grajcar says one particular piece of feedback underscored that they were on the right track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe actually had a former chef be one of our patients and talking about working in an industry and understanding how challenging it can be. They were very much surprised. It was along the lines of \u2018forget hospital food, this was fantastic for any type of food.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds Perl: \u201cBeing a chef, we\u2019re very difficult, so the fact that somebody was in the hospital and in that moment wanted to make sure we got that feedback, we hang it on the wall with pride. Our goal really was taking that negative stigma away from hospital food. People always think [hospital food] is bland and \u2018I\u2019m eating for the sake of eating,\u2019 where we really took the approach of that restaurant-style quality and bringing it to our patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact that we had somebody that had been in the industry\u2026say how much they enjoyed it, that the quality stood out to them, really made a difference to ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the retail perspective, Jennie Baker, Compass\u2019 Regional Director of Retail Operations, said it was all about \u201ccreating an oasis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe’ve really focused on enhancing the space as well to create that atmosphere where the teams, whether it’s a staff member or a family member can come kind of rest, refuel and recharge and then go back out, whether they’re caring for a loved one or going back to their shift,\u201d says Baker. \u201cWe take the model where every bite brings you home. It gives you that comfort level of food, but then also offering that elevated dining experience with culinary chef inspired menus and operations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mere mention of \u201chospital food\u201d can conjure up, for some, images of a mushy, beige blandness \u2013 but that idea has been thoroughly challenged by Southlake Health in a complete transformation of their culinary experience for patients, their families, and staff alike. Gone are the days of pre-made, warmed-up fare. In are scratch-made recipes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/2025-08-14-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9xI","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 03:44:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36688,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36686\/revisions\/36688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}