CA 
ES 
EN 
FR 
News
During the month of November 2021, SERHS Food was awarded with the new work canteen service, cafeteria and vending service in the facilities of the System of Medical Emergencies (S.E.M.) of the Generalitat of Catalonia. The company has been managing this service since February 2016.
The SEM’s mission is to provide health services 24/365 in order to respond to emergency situations and pre-hospital emergencies, as well as to provide information and health advice, both in ordinary and extraordinary situations. Within the framework of the Department of Health, its objective is to provide a close, proactive, excellent and efficient information, orientation and healthcare service that obtains the satisfaction of the people who live in and visit Catalonia.
This new award has led to the introduction of a significant number of improvements both at the level of spaces, signage, such as the different vending machines, new and more sustainable, personalized, as well as the introduction of healthier, quiality and local products. Premium service is provided for the 400 daily users based on the criteria of the Mediterranean Diet, also contemplating different aspects of specific diets. It highlights the availability of daily vegetarian menus throughout the year. As a novelty, there is also a new solution for catering called Take Eat Easy, based on a dispensing machine (24/365) of fifth-range cooked dishes, specially designed for the workplace. It presents a high rotation of recipes and novelties, dietary control, time savings and maximum food safety and prevention as basic characteristics of the more than 30 recipes, complete unique fishes, offered in the center (veggie, traditional, gourmet). It has also been consolidated as a nutritional support for medical emergency contingencies.
SERHS Food is the first and only collective catering company in Spain, in the High Performance Kitchen, certified in the FSSC 22000 v5 standard and which also has ISO 9001:2015 on quality and ISO 22.000:2018 on food safety.
SERHS Food, together with the Maresme Health Consortium, the Maresme Foundation and the Mataró City Council have started an innovative program to prevent malnutrition in children and adolescents with severe neurological disorders who suffer from dysphagia and who have problems eating and drinking with normality, which affects your health and quality of life.
This project began in 2019 thanks to the money that the Maresme Health Consortium (CSdM) collects from the “El Comer Cura!” Campaign, with the collaboration of the Maresme Foundation and the support of the Mataró City Council.
Now, once the scientific study has been carried out, the program is consolidated through the collaboration of SERHS Food and is integrated as a pilot test in the ordinary operation of the L’Arboç de Mataró school, where most of the students have cerebral palsy.
The project is also possible thanks to the agreement signed with the Mataró City Council, which will contribute € 14,000 per year to offset the extra cost of adapting the diets to the needs of the students.
Phase 1: investigation and diagnosis of the situation
The first objective of the CSdM team of researchers was to evaluate the situation of the students of the L’Arboç school.
The study carried out in 2019 and recently published in the prestigious journal Nutrients shows that all the students had dysphagia, 89% had growth difficulties, 55% were underweight and 70% dehydrated. The study included a chewing, swallowing and nutritional evaluation, an estimate of nutritional and water needs, and the design of a modified texture diet.
“To develop this project, it has been essential to carry out a preliminary research study to measure the dimension of the problem and establish the nutritional needs of the school students based on age and nutritional status based on 4 different phenotypes. All this has allowed us to verify that the affectation is very wide and that the problem is not only their diet, but also their hydration.”, Says Pere Clavé, academic, research and innovation director of the CSdM.
Phase 2: educational program
During this year an online program has been carried out to train people who care for students, both in the school environment (tutors, educators, physiotherapists, nurses, speech therapists, etc.) and at home (formal and informal caregivers), as well as to families.
Cristina Carol, director of the L’Arboç special education school explains that “The more we know about dysphagia, the more we realize the incidence that this disease has in a school like ours, and the more aware we are of its impact on health of our students, all with great neurological affectations. Consequently, it is key that the educational community is aware of dysphagia and knows how to act on it. For this reason, we value this comprehensive intervention of the CSdM very positively to help improve the health and quality of life of our students”.
Phase 3: adapted school cafetería
During this course the school is working on what is known as the Triple Diet Adaptation (TAD); the adaptation of the different calories and proteins of the dishes to the needs of each student, as well as their viscosity and texture, enhancing the organoleptic qualities to make tasty and attractive dishes.
It is in this phase of developing the dishes for the students that Serhs Food has come into action.
This comprehensive intervention program in a school with students with neurological disabilities will serve as a pilot experience to later implement the system in other centers. “We believe that it is a much more widespread problem than it may seem and that is why all the procedures that we have designed in a pioneering way, as well as the development of adapted diets, will also serve for other schools in similar situations”, says Pere Clavé.
Raimon Bagó, general director of SERHS Food, comments that “our main objective has always been individual satisfaction within collective catering. With the adaptation of food to each person entails, one by one, according to their needs. In this case it is even more important and we show our commitment in this collaboration”.
The media have echoed the news. You can see it in La Vanguardia.
The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, inaugurated the 5th edition of Circular Economy Hotspot 2021, an event that, he affirmed, “will allow us to show innovative, courageous and disruptive initiatives and projects” that are being carried out in Catalonia, because “our ambition is to become a benchmark country in the circular economy”. This annual celebration that brings together public representatives and intersectoral companies from Europe and around the world took place in Barcelona from November 15th to the 18th. The Circular Economy Hotspot has already been held previously in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Scotland, and Belgium, with the aim of sharing experiences and strategies on circular economy. The people who participate, about 300, are part of the main European actors involved in the transformation of the current economic and productive model.
Catalonia, the host of this new edition of the Circular Economy Hotspot, has some 400 companies that currently offer circular solutions, of which half export worldwide. During the day and a half of the organized itineraries, some of these initiatives were explored, as well as I+D+I projects, government and successful collaborations.
SERHS Food participated as one of the centers visited in the food sector, which also included Mercabarna, Celler Raimat, IRTA, among other centers of interest. Specifically, the delegation of about 25 professionals visited the facilities of the High-Performance Kitchen (CAR) in Mataró, where the environmental benefits of the activity were shown.
Raimon Bagó, general director of SERHS Food, presented the environmental indicators of the CAR as a sustainable option versus a kitchen in a restaurant, made at home or in a community such as a school. Based on energy consumption, carbon footprint (CO2), waste reduction, packaging or management of local suppliers and logistics distribution, among others, the High-Performance Kitchen objectively presents, based on measurable data, the best environmental option for the preparation of cooked dishes. For the analysis of the data and indicators, we have had the collaboration of Inèdit, a leading company in the sector that was born at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, pioneers in industrial ecology and 12 years of experience and more than 300 national and international clients.
The celebration of this event in Catalonia reinforces the Catalonia Circular hub, a meeting point for companies, institutions and people who provide solutions and strategies to implement and consolidate the circular economy in Catalonia.
In the 32 public schools of Terrassa that SERHS Food manages the dining room service and noon space, this 2021-2022 course, the number of different diets that are prepared each day has increased from 49 last year to 62 this year. It is a question of an important number of different diets that are all therapeutic, determined by medical prescription and, also, as a novelty as of October of this year an ovolatile-vegetarian diet is offered for reasons of ethical or personal decision. Along with diets without meat and without fish due to religious reasons.
From the 62 diets that are currently being prepared for the more than 5,000 children who use the canteen service, the number of children who require personalized nutrition has increased, above all, from 22 last year to 37 this year. It is about meeting the specific dietary needs that in some cases involve a combination of different generic diets or there is some intolerance to ingredients such a fructose, which may be for a child on a specific fruit and for another on another fruit, which cannot be taken. Hence the high degree of customization. Also, diabetic diets have been increased as a remarkable fact. All this must be coordinated with the new premises established by the PREME Plan of the Generalitat for schools in which the introduction of vegetable protein in the menus stand out.
“Without gluten, without pork, no meat, no fish, no eggs, hypocaloric, low in cholesterol… each day we make an important coordination and planning work for the public schools of Terrassa among all those involved” says Lourdes Catalá, responsible of dietetics of SERHS Food. She goes on to say that “this high level of customization that is increasing year by year implies a significant effort at the level of professional resources that is compensated by the better satisfaction in the service that we offer to children of all ages when we are in the schools”.
SERHS Food is a Catalan company with more than 40 years of experience and based in Mataró that serves Terrassa since March 2016. The forecast for this school year 2021-2022 is to improve in areas such as those explained above, differentiated diets, as well as in the greater introduction of ecological products, of proximity, increase the training courses in the internal teams and promote the idea of sustainability in the school canteens. In total, the company manages 200 schools throughout Catalonia, Zaragoza and Oviedo, both the food side and the midday space with the different educational project of each center. Individual satisfaction in collective catering is promoted as the main purpose in the pyramid of values of the company from its very origin.
The media have echoed the news! You can see it in the Diari de Terrassa and Terrassa Digital.
This past 7th and 8th of October, the Catalan Foodservice Cluster carried out the VII Strategic Immersion, a Food Hub for Innovation in Catalonia at the Alicia Foundation. The event gathered 75 companies of the Catalan Foodservice sector to deal with strategic challenges, think of solutions and innovative projects and see the world trends of the future.
Mr. Albert Castellanos, Secretary of Business and Competitiveness, opened the day and stressed the importance of continuing to prioritize innovation and projects driven by clusters. His speech was followed by the welcoming of Toni Massanés, Director of the Alicia Foundation, and by Raimón Bagó, President of the Catalonian Foodservice Cluster.
The presentation on international trends of the future, by Beatriz Romanos (TechFood Magazine), was very well received. Beatriz spoke of the change in trend from scarcity to abundance, which has grown a lot in recent years, and how those companies that manage to focus on abundance grow exponentially. She exemplified it with several international cases of the most inspiring. Next, the reflections on restoration with David Romero (Grupo Andilana), Santi Carda (Cal Blay) and Raimón Bagó (Serhs Food), stimulated by Sonia Gasa (Retail Tech) contributed different points of view on the new trends and how to face the new ones. challenges of the catering sector in Catalonia.
The last activity on the 7th was the Food Hub of Innovation, the 5 corners of food innovation, led by Toni Massanés (Alicia Foundation), Ricard Soler (Atlantis), Beatriz Romanos (TechFood Magazine), Raimon Puigjaner (R4S) and Sofía Garín (Inédito). The Food Hub was a meeting point to exchange reflections on the 5 proposed challenges and a food reference point to initiate all kinds of business collaborations.
The day on Friday October 8 began with the seminar on personalized food, social catering, and groups with specific needs. Fabiola Juárez and Adriana Gálvez (Alicia Foundation) brought the audience closer to better understand the importance of what when it comes to eating well, as well as to reflect on new concepts and ways of working.
The presentation of the Second Foodservice Market Observatory by Edurne Uranga (NPD) was also very remarkable. The numbers, trends and forecasts were not only positive, but also gave contextual data to see where we came from and where we are going and how the sector will have to adapt to new market trends, such as the exponential growth of delivery.
In the following presentation, Miquel Ristol (Horeca Business 360), inspired with his presentation “Reset post-pandemic”, about how he went from leading a family business to creating several companies with international finance and with exponential growth.
Finally, the activity that culminated in the VII Strategic Immersion was Coffee with innovative and disruptive companies with Alex Vidal (Hiedra), Mariano Oto (Nucaps) and Joan Solomando (Nueva Meat). All the presentations and the reflections that the speakers made among themselves generated a lot of interest and questions from the audience, who came out with new ideas and knowledge.
For the third consecutive year, Serhs Food has renewed its collaboration with Lleida’s Institute of Biomedic Investigation, Dr. Pifarré Foundation. Thanks to the financial contribution of the collaborating companies of IRBLleida, it is possible to continue advancing in Lleida in research for the benefit of health.
SERHS Food for more than 40 years has shown a special commitment to society and in the economic and social environment. In the case of Lleida, the company has a special territorial establishment in the same capital, at different points, as well as in Almacelles.
The IRBLleida also gives support to the investigation groups that work at the University of Lleida and the Leridano Sanitary System, to investigate about relevant illnesses such as cancer, ictus, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, pleura, aging, nervous system, cardiovascular system, respiratory disorders and infections, mental disorders, among others. It has almost five hundred people related to the investigation, and brings together biomedical research in Lleida, both in the health field and in the university field. Since it was established in 2004, the scientific activity of the IRBLleida has multiplied and has the support of more than one hundred and sixty companies and entities from Lleida, with the help of which the research of their groups has yielded important results, as it has allowed a better understanding of these diseases and improve their diagnosis and treatment.
The Maresme private Foundation for people with intellectual disabilities, a non-profit social initiative entity that promotes and encourages social inclusion, and SERHS Food, a company that offers the whole management of food service in collective catering, have signed an agreement to carry out professional internships in the Incorpora program that “La Caixa” promotes.
The objective is to achieve the improvement of the employability of people who are at risk or situation of social exclusion having as basic axes the following:
– Design of the actions based on the business demand of the territory.
– Find the implication of the company throughout the process.
– Empower the person and develop the transversal competences as a differential element for the improvement of their employability.
– Non-labor internships in the company and training.
– Networking of entities.
Thus, SERHS Food has incorporated -during the month of September- 3 people that will be part of the human team of the company in the High-Performance Kitchen in Mataró, 2 people and another person in the cafeteria-restaurant of the Blanes Hospital. Each one will carry out 80 hours of internships that should serve to learn new ways of working, and at the same time collaborate with the service that is developed in these centers.
Both entities have agreed to support the design and preparation of training actions that are adapted to the specific needs of each person and the company, and that allow a greater effectiveness in the non-labor internships, giving a practical and real vision of the activity. For this reason, a welcome session was held “in situ” by all those involved with a presentation and visit to the center, discussing the different job options and in which a great empathy and motivation of the employees was shown.
The Maresme Foundation was established on November 28, 1994, continuing the work begun in 1966 by the Maresme Association for people with mental disabilities. The mission of the Foundation is to promote and enforce the rights of people with intellectual disabilities, make them visible to society, claim and encourage their active participation and accompany them in their vital process of adaptation, growth, and social inclusion.
SERHS Food has a history of more than 40 years in the collective catering sector, focused on schools, hospitals, health centers, companies, and other spaces. It is made up of a workforce of 2,000 workers who manage 30,000 meals a day. It is the first and only company in Spain certified in the maximum FSSC22000 food safety standard.
Since the start of the food service of the Arnau de Vilanova de Lleida hospital complex in 2018, SERHS Food has maintained a close relationship with different local suppliers in the area and especially with the Special Work Center (CET) El Pla.
It is a non-profit entity, which belongs to the Hermano Benito Menni Foundation, promoted by the Hospitaller Order of San Juan de Dios Spain. In 1994, the El Pla Special Work Center was created, located in the province of Lleida, in the town of Almacelles. It offers stable and quality work to people at risk of exclusion.
Specifically, SERHS Food buys fresh products for its garden (fruits and vegetables) and 5th range products (salads and vacuumed-packed carrots). They stand out for their quality and maximum proximity. In the CET the Pla are specialists in handling, sale and daily distribution.
The 5th range products have stricter sanitary requirements than those of the same products without handling. For this reason, rigorous quality and food safety controls are followed throughout the process. Consuming a fresh-cut product is the fastest and healthiest way to eat fresh vegetables. Currently, the fresh cut area is one of the areas that generates the most jobs in the El Pla Special Work Center. They have the ISO 22000 international food quality certification.
They also perform other services apart from packaging, such as cleaning, gardening or Christmas packages with social values. Also, SERHS Food manages the food services of the San Juan de Dios Tierras de Lleida center since January 2020.
Take eat easy is a Serhs Food brand that acts as a line specialized in corporate catering. It presents a new catering solution for the new era. It is a new concept of restaurant space, tasty-close-sustainable, for the day-to-day of companies or other centers. Flexible and adaptable to each necessity, opened 24 hours and 7 days a week, in which more than 30 cooked 5th-range dishes are offered, specially designed for the workplace, as well as other healthy products.
Through a vending machine with refrigerated products a wide range of cooked dishes is available, structured in different levels of very competitive prices, and in very complete individual servings, of quality, ready to eat. It is enough to heat them in the microwave (2-3 minutes) or in case of being cold, consume directly. Mediterranean diet recipes with a lot of variety, high rotation, balanced and without added preservatives, in a 100% recyclable tray. With the support of an APP the dishes can be selected (contactless) and enjoy of the advantages in prices, dynamic promotions, and more detailed information of each product.
A CAREFUL DIET AND NUTRITION
Health and work go hand by hand and are mutually influenced. It is very important to adapt the diet to the work activity, to better the resistance and reduce fatigue. Improves the well-being of the staff, helps a varied diet, reduces the time needed to eat and makes the schedule more flexible. Complement for homeworking, product also to consume “at home”. Safety and Covid free guarantee both in the elaboration as well as the consumption model. Each person has specific needs.
ADVANTAGES
This catering concept is directed at offices, service companies, industrial companies, universities, schools, hospitals, residencies, camping, apartments, gas stations, collectivities, airports, train stations, subway, bus, among other centers.
- Company-center: added value to the workers. No investment from the company nor adapting to complex norms about kitchen space. Adapted to schedules. Workers pay directly. Hot food, varied, unique dishes, complete. Novelties and options to complement spaces.
- Users: quality cooked dishes. 24 hours / 365 days. High rotation of recipes and novelties. Dietary control-maximum food safety. Day-to-day food at competitive prices, between 3,50 €, the most traditional dishes, and 4,50 € the most Premium dishes. Great time saver (avoid tuppers) and maximum Covid-19 prevention avoiding common refrigerators and spaces.
SERHS Food through the Take eat easy brand offers services to companies, with all the quality, agility, efficiency and above all proximity, with high capacity to adapt to the needs of the services and the type of spaces, taking advantage of the experience of more than 40 years in management in all areas. This catering option has already begun to be implemented in June in different centers under management of the Division. SEHRS Food is the first and only collective catering company in Spain that is certified by the FSSC 22.000 norm that accredits maximum food safety.
More information at www.takeeateasy.es
