Pureed to Perfection
10 March, 2020 by Aged Plus Magazine
The Pure Food Co.’s latest range of puree flavours are safe to eat, supercharged with nutrition and – most importantly – delicious. This is pureed food like you’ve never seen or tasted before.
On the face of it, pureed food doesn’t necessarily sound particularly appetising, good for you or cutting-edge. If you have health issues that mean you have trouble swallowing, you might think there was little joy left to be had when eating. But The Pure Food Co are showing that there is a solution. Their fortified purees, soups and smoothies are tasty, nutritionally sound and incredibly innovative. The Pure Food Co.’s commitment to enhancing the quality of life for people with swallowing difficulties was recognised at the 2019 New Zealand Food Awards, where it won the Business Innovation Award and the overall Supreme Award.
For their Summer 2020 product release The Pure Food Co partnered with Aged Care chefs to develop 2 new desserts as part of the latest range.
Head Chef Braam Ellis from Arvida Village at the Park enjoys working in aged care, particularly “seeing the smiles on the faces of the residents when they are eating well, a key focus for the Arvida network”.
“I got the idea for a new Tiramisu product from our independent residents. They really enjoyed the tiramisu that I made for one of our fun engaging events, so I thought it would be something worthwhile to bring to our Care residents – and know that they would enjoy it too.” Braam says.
Head Chef Jessen Ramtano enjoys creating tasty and good-looking dishes that everyone in the Ryman Possum Bourne community can enjoy. He used his skill in the kitchen to create a tangy Lemon Delight which he explains was inspired by his own family, “we love our lemon flavour in NZ and my all-time favourite snack is lemon slice, we have a family recipe that goes back a few generations. So, I created a new recipe from this… hopefully as good as our family ones, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with everyone”.
Both chefs have been involved from inception right through to product trials to ensure they were happy with the end result. “I was stunned how the guys at The Pure Food Co turned my dessert into a puree and it still had the taste I was looking for” Jessen explains.
“We maintain a good balance between nutrition, food science and flavour,” Pure Food Product Development Technologist, Danielle Merton says.
“We never want to compromise the taste of the products, that’s really important to us. We’ve always had the input of chefs to help us develop our products in the first stage, but for these products we were particularly excited to work with chefs leading the way in aged care”.
These great new dessert flavours launched in February, together with other new products Mac n Cheese Inspired, Herbed Beetroot and Mild Tandoori Chickpea (available in Puree and Minced & Moist), are sure to keep residents, kitchen staff and carers happy!
For more information on The Pure Food Co visit www.thepurefoodco.com