Project: Good and nutritious snacks for the elderly through the project Adapted Hospital food

Many elderly patients have poor appetite and therefore do not get enough nutrition at the regular meals of the hospitals. Therefore, they need more nutritious snacks. The project will in a process make new innovative products together with selected small and medium-sized food companies. Additionally, the project will with the support of dieticians and healthcare departments develop new innovative snack products with traditional regional taste profile, appreciated by the elderly patients.

There is a great interest in the project from several hospital regions in Sweden and the project will involve a selected hospital and specific healthcare departments. There are plenty of innovative small and medium-sized food companies that manufacture good, nutritious and energy-rich snacks.  A number of these companies have shown interest in contributing and making their new product formulations in the project.

“During the project, contacts will also be taken with the procurement unit, so that the new products will be able to enter the hospital procurement process,” says Anders Lareke at En God Granne, who is one of the partners in the project.

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En God Granne has worked with six small and medium-size food producers (SMEs) to adapt ordinary food products to the needs of elderly consumers in care. This has involving adapting nine products in total in terms of their nutritional content and portion size. Storage requirements and logistics were also considered.

The products were then evaluated during a 60-day trial in a nursing home and homecare service.

The objective was to overcome poor nutrition among the elderly and, through that, prevent or delay the need for hospital treatment. For this reason, the team developed a between-meal snack concept for target users.

At the outset, the project aimed to test the products in Swedish hospitals. However, due to the fact that a typical hospital stay is relatively short, the focus was shifted to nursing homes and homecare service, where a longer trial could be carried out.

On completion of the project, En God Granne can report that all nine products have been approved by elderly consumers and that the adaptation process is easily transferrable to other foods. Meetings with municipal procurement manager have also now been held.