The Centre has appointed The Wellbeing Food Company (TWFC) as is its food supplier. The menu consists of a main lunch meal plus morning and afternoon tea. The Wellbeing Food Company is a proud Queensland based company focused on providing healthy Early Learning meals, including meals that cater for all types of special dietary requirements.
The Wellbeing Food Company strive to source food from our local region and in an environmentally responsible manner and do not just provide a meal solution. They provide nutritious food that ensures the children receive a balanced and comprehensive range of meals over a four-week menu cycle. The menus are developed in consultation with an Accredited Practising Dietitian focusing on using the five core food groups and providing essential macro and micronutrients for proper growth and development, including protein and fibre, which are often lacking in many children’s diets. This is in line with the Dietary
Guidelines for Australia. For more information on the Guidelines, visit www.eatforhealth.gov.au/guidelines.
The Wellbeing Food Company is never complacent with their offering. They have a continuous improvement programme and an amazing team who are constantly working on new meals for the seasonal menu changes.
The children certainly will not get bored with the meals offered. For children with special dietary requirements, The Wellbeing Food Co. offers tasty and nutritional special dietary alternative meals in individual sealed packaging with the child’s name and room on the label to manage cross-contamination and safety with a large variety of meal options.
The Wellbeing Food Company. Menus 5 Food Groups
The Wellbeing Food Company delivers a large variety of seasonal food their menus. Importantly their offering is low in salt and sugar in accordance with the menu planning guidelines for Long Day Care Centres.
Dairy
Menus always contain a combination of Cheese, Yoghurt and Milk every day. Alternate offerings are provided for Dairy Free or Vegan children as recommended. Dairy is essential to children’s development and is an excellent source of calcium, which is essential for strong and healthy bones. Not many other foods in our diet contain as much calcium as these foods. They also provide important nutrients such as protein, iodine, riboflavin, and Vitamin B12.
Fruit
Every day a good variety of seasonal freshly chosen fruit from the markets is provided to the children. Fruit serving sizes are calculated in accordance with the Australian Dietary Guidelines and depending on the growing season a combination of apples, pears, mandarins, oranges, watermelons, and other fruits are provided.
Vegetables
Vegetables make up a large part of the food offered and can include peas, corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, beetroot, potato, sweet potato and even corn on the cob. Eating vegetables can be a challenge for children. Vegetables are served at lunch are provided as a side to the main lunch with some extra veggies thrown into the meal as well. Also provided are vegetables like cucumber and carrot sticks at snack times with a variety of dips. Vegetables are encouraged as they provide vitamins, minerals, dietary fibre, and phytonutrients (nutrients naturally present in plants).
Protein (Beef, Chicken, Fish, Beans/Legumes)
Four out of five days TWFC provides meat in the lunch dishes. Also, a Vegetarian option is provided once per week and a fish dish every fortnight. TWFC offers a variety of lunch menus from various cultural backgrounds that contain various recipes using beef and chicken plus most dishes are enhanced with beans and legumes for some extra protein and fibre.
Cereal Foods
In many cases, wholegrain and/or high fibre varieties of bread, cereals, rice, pasta, and noodles are chosen. Discretionary foods are provided only a few times per week, at snack times. These include banana bread, pikelets, carrot loaf, sultana and oat loaf, high fibre peach loaf, wholemeal pineapple loaf, apple and cinnamon loaf, high fibre blueberry and apple loaf, wholemeal garlic rolls, and a variety of savoury scrolls, scones and dampers.
Menus
The Wellbeing Food Company has a four weekly rotating menu which are also displayed in our foyer.
Below are the current standard Menus