Does the idea of having to cook three meals a day overwhelm you sometimes?
Well, imagine cooking 10,000 meals every day.
That’s the reality for our wonderful hardworking team of around 17 full time and part time chefs, and 47 kitchen employees at our Central Production Kitchen (CPK), just one of the many teams delivering hospitality at Monash Health.
On joining the CPK, Production Manager and Chef Shane Pereira, who used to work at five-star restaurants and hotels around the world, said the sheer volume of food production was something he had to adjust to.
“When I first heard we had to make 10,000 meals each day, I almost fell off my chair,” he said.
“It sounds like it would be really difficult, but thanks to the great systems we have in place and the support we get it’s actually highly manageable.”
For Shane, leaving the world of high-end fine dining behind to join Victoria’s largest health-based central production kitchen was an easy decision.
“I wanted to further my career and explore different platforms and avenues to use my skills, and I love working in a place where my skills are really appreciated,” he said.
Despite the everyday mass production of food, where meals are prepared not only for Monash Health hospitals and facilities but also for other Victorian health services such as Eastern and Peninsula Health, Shane still gets opportunities to explore his culinary creativity.
“We recently created a special three-course meal for residents from four of our residential sites to celebrate Valentine’s Day,” he said.
“It helps keep the passion for food alive and ensures I’m not just doing the same thing all the time while getting to be creative.”
The delicious menu included an entrée of smoked salmon rosettes with German potato salad, salmon caviar and fig glaze, a classic main of roast lamb with garlic and herb potatoes, peas, carrots, rosemary jus and mint jelly, and a delicious vanilla panna cotta with fresh berries, cream and coulis with edible flowers for dessert.
“The feedback from all the residents was unanimously positive, and that made our day as much as the food made theirs,” Shane said.
Shane said when cooking he lives by the motto “provide dignity on a plate”.
“Cooking is a tough gig, but once you get used to it you can’t do without it,” he said.
“If you asked me to garden I’d get tired after 20 minutes, but if you asked me to cook, I could do it for 24 hours because I just love it.”
With today being Hospitality Workers in Healthcare Day, we’d like to take the opportunity to thank all our hospitality workers including cleaners, PSAs, kitchen employees, and waste and linen teams for the phenomenal work they put in everyday to help care for our patients, visitors and employees.
Thank you once more to our Monash Health Hospitality workers!