Comment/Opinion

With the right combination of good quality bread and lean fillings, often with a salad accompaniment, the humble sandwich is a ready-made all round winner for taste, convenience and nutrition. A healthy serving offers a good balance of nutrients including carbohydrates and proteins, a choice of bread or rolls of brown or wholemeal adds to the variety.

With the Earth’s resources rapidly depleting, combined with an ever-increasing consumer demand to know where and how our food is sourced, dialogue between consumers, businesses and farms has never been more important. By offering a sustainable option on the beverage menu – be it coffee, tea or hot chocolate – baristas can not only address their own social responsibilities, learning about how, where and why sustainable farming is important, but also take this to their customers.

Protection of equipment is paramount to ensure that the machine is protected from the daily elements and to ensure that the vending drink exceeds the customer’s perception of what they expect to receive, achieved through improvements of the mains feed water by removing contaminants, poor taste and smell.

From the growth of independent coffee shops and rise of affordable gourmet foods, the street food revolution and on-going popularity of TV chefs and The Great British Bake Off, ‘Foodie’ culture is truly booming. Ten years ago you certainly wouldn’t have seen artisanal products used in supermarket in-store bakeries but now they are commonplace as rustic homemade loaves of all shapes, flavours and toppings line the shelves.

“We need to display a wide range of foods and produce including meats, fruit, vegetables and cakes. Different units from different manufacturers would make the store look untidy so we looked everywhere for someone who could supply exactly what we wanted. Then I discovered TFSE Products and they did a beautiful job,” Salman said.  

Emma Nourry, trade marketing manager at SCA for the Lotus Professional brand, discusses how food service staff can maintain good hand hygiene levels when handling money around food, and how catering outlets can help to ensure the best levels of hygiene for their customers. Limiting contact between money and food

A survey among parents commissioned by the Children’s Food Trust with the School Food Trust came up with interesting views on healthy eating. Chief executive Judy Hargadon analyses the responses.

The healthy eating debate is dominated by the issue of obesity, but recent research suggests that malnutrition costs the NHS twice as much. Chief executive of apetito Paul Freeston says it is high time we tackled this important issue Malnutrition is the fourth-biggest driver of cost in the NHS with public health expenditure on managing the illness expected to exceed £13 billion a year. With the rising costs of care and the changing demands of an aging population, there is a clear and pressing need for action.