Following the hugely successful introduction of finger food within the company’s flexible multi-portion Crown Choice offering earlier this year, Anglia Crown has developed an individual meal version for its Crown Advantage range.
Crown Advantage includes around 40 frozen meals and its innovative packaging allows for precise presentation to ensure consistency at every meal service. Meals can be transferred from the pack to a warm plate or bowl with the aid of the removable base.
The new meals, designed to help people with dementia, are suitable for patients requiring food they can eat with their fingers.
The meals include gammon and pineapple; fish fingers and a vegetarian burger, all served with baked chips, carrots and broccoli. Other options include pork sausages or vegetarian sausages (pictured above), served with jacket wedges, carrots and broccoli.
The Crown Advantage finger food range, which will be available from October, will help hospitals better support patients who struggle to eat with cutlery. This can include people with dementia, upper limb injuries, IV cannulas in situ, those who have suffered a stroke, children and many more.
A greater awareness of the need for finger foods in hospitals has arisen through the Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) process.
The system assesses the patient environment and how it supports patients in matters such as privacy, dignity and food.
Paul Howell, managing director at Anglia Crown, said: “Our Crown Advantage finger food range has been developed with the aim of improving patient satisfaction as it provides a dignified meal option, enhancing the food and drink experience for patients who would otherwise struggle to eat.
“Progressive under-nutrition is particularly common among people with dementia who can start to lose weight for several reasons such as forgetting to eat or not being able to recognise food.
“Research has shown finger foods can help improve nutritional uptake for people with dementia and stimulate them to eat more frequently. Highly visible crockery such as the use of blue plates in hospitals has also led to an increase in food consumption.”
He added, “After a clear need for an alternative dining solution for certain patient groups was identified through patient-led assessments, we set about developing a wide range of easy-to-eat menu options as part of Crown Choice.
“This has been well received by the hospitals we supply and so it was a natural progression to adapt our offering to produce a complete individual frozen finger food meal solution.
“We are proud to be introducing five new Crown Advantage finger food meals to the foodservice market.”
Anglia Crown is a chilled and frozen prepared meal manufacturer for the UK healthcare sector, working with more than 100 sites.