The Catering Mark is awarded for serving fresh, healthy meals made with local, seasonal and organic ingredients and provides staff, patients and visitors at City Hospital and Queens Medical Centre with a guarantee that the food they are eating is prepared with fresh ingredients which are free from harmful additives and trans fats.
Chris Neale, central food production manager at NUH says: “Having a flexible menu and working in partnership with local suppliers enables us to produce food with fresh ingredients when they are available, and take them off our menu out of season.
“As we are such a large organisation, this provides stability to the local economy, and supports British supply chains.”
He added that switching to local suppliers had been cost neutral and allowed the Trust to invest £2m a year in local businesses, with 77% of its raw ingredient spend going on local ingredients – meat, fresh produce, bakery products and milk are all sourced from within the local region or adjacent county.
“As a result, NUH are able to provide patients, staff and visitors with quality meals at an ingredient cost price of £4.53 per patient per day – which is below the national average for patient day costs.”
Rob Sexton, chief executive of Soil Association Certification, said: "The Gold Catering Mark is a fantastic achievement, and it’s great to see NUH gaining recognition for serving fresh meals made with seasonal, local and organic ingredients.
“It is becoming increasingly recognised that fresh, nutritious food plays an important part in improving patient care and meeting public health outcomes. Serving menus to Gold Standards helps to build the skills of catering staff and reduce carbon emissions. Nottingham University Hospital Trust is leading the way in the drive to improve food culture in our hospitals.”