Cateys 2024: Health and Nutrition Award: Signature Dining

This year’s Heath and Nutrition Award winner has been honoured for building on its care catering capabilities, given that the residents and patients it works with have specific nutrition and hydration needs.

 

In January, Signature Dining launched leasing option Signature Elements, designed to allow care homes to pick and choose from services such as food management, allergen compliance, chef recruitment and food presentation, without having to outsource the whole offering. This has seen the caterer add nine Elements clients, all seeking to improve the standards of their texture-modified meals.

 

Signature Dining’s service is underpinned by an ethos of ‘all cooked from fresh daily’. Its person-centred approach allows its team to understand the needs of each resident and patient and to adapt their meals for them. Its chefs ensure meals feature the best fresh produce, are nutritionally balanced, avoid the use of processed foods and have reduced fat, salt and sugar contents, meaning every dish is a healthy option.

 

Signature Dining also offers vegan and vegetarian dishes on its daily menus as well as calorie-dense, fortified foods as grazing options to people with smaller appetites.

 

As a specialist caterer for care homes, Signature Dining has extensive experience of catering for people with dysphagia and dementia. The firm’s deep understanding of these life-altering diagnoses inspires its ‘dining with dignity’ promise – that every texture-modified meal will look just as good as it tastes, guaranteeing dignity on a plate.

 

In order to meet this commitment, its chefs follow the International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative framework. Chefs hand-pipe and shape every texture-modified meal, recreating a modified version of a standard menu item, ensuring each dish is clearly recognisable and looks tasty and enticing. Signature Dining understands that the people it works with are susceptible to rapid weight loss, lack of appetite and malnutrition. 

 

Its bespoke approach makes an enormous difference, as it meets with residents and their families to ensure its teams understand their food preferences and assures them that they can eat whatever they wish to, whenever they like.

 

The company’s success has been measured by its reputation in the care sector and in the growth it has celebrated in the past year, during which it has extended its client base into hospices.

 

What the judges said

 

“Signature Dining’s attention to patient-centred support around meal provision is to be celebrated.” Christine Bailey

 

“A worthy winner, enhancing the lives of residents and patients every day through great food, ensuring patients’ families are reassured that their loved ones are well catered for.” Judith Gregory

 

“Signature Dining has shown continued innovation with focus on the resident. Food is key to care with empathy, dignity and well-trained chefs and staff.” Andrew Jones

 

The shortlist

 

Caterlink

 

OCS

 

Signature Dining

 

The judges

 

Christine Bailey Thomas Franks

 

Judith Gregory  Cardiff Council

 

Andrew Jones Aj Associates

 

Vince Kelly Westminster Kingsway College

 

John Lavery Fish City