Behind the scenes of RBWH food services

Lisa McGuire with Site Coordinator Juerg Suter at the recent RBWH kitchen open day.

Every day of the year, more than 100 food services and dietetics staff prepare and deliver food to almost 1,000 patients across RBWH, many with complex dietary and nutrition needs.

Assistant Director of Food Services, Lisa McGuire led tours for the recent kitchen open day and shares some incredible statistics about the kitchen’s operations.

“Each year, the team prepare almost 1.5 million meals,” Lisa said.

“Our output includes more than 430,000 sandwiches, 22,300 salads and 163,800 bananas.”

The process of preparing meals starts with the kitchen receiving up to 120 truck deliveries each week.

“With the amount of stock we receive, it’s important we run a tight ship to make sure food is fresh when it reaches patients,” Lisa said.

“The team operate across roles, which range from meal preparation to delivering meals to patients and we spend a staggering 8,400 hours washing dishes each year.”

Lisa is proud of the work the team do to meet the needs of patients and staff at RBWH.

“We pride ourselves on the quality and efficiency of our work,” she said.

“We aim to provide patients with tasty and nutritious meals while they’re in hospital.”