By Healthcare Facilities Today

Once standard items on hospital food trays such as coffee, tea, salt and pepper will no longer be made available unless special requested as Canada's Interior Health aims to cut food service costs, according to an article on the Nelson Star website.

Kootenay Lake Hospital in Nelson, British Columbia, will discontinue highly wasted items like tea and coffee with milk and sugar; salt and pepper and milk and crackers, according to Laresa Altenhoff, manager of food and nutrition services for Interior Health East

“We’re doing our due diligence to try and reduce costs that are associated to health care. It’s important to be cognizant of waste as well,” she said. “I hate things going in the garbage.”

Throughout July, August and September, IH conducted a “plate waste” audit that found almost 75 per cent of these to-be-eliminated items were going in the garbage costing Interior Health East’s acute care $50,000 annually, the article said.

Items appearing on trays cannot be saved because of FoodSafe and infection control.

Read the article.