Central kitchen cooks up 1,800 lunch boxes a day

Zhou Yulin and Tom Qian

A CENTRAL kitchen catering for older people in Jiading Town opened for business on September 18, preparing 1,800 lunch boxes for them every day. At Taoyuan Community, volunteers handed out meals for seniors from 10am.

“Beforehand, I had to take the lunch box home and heat it in order to have a hot meal, it was very troublesome. Now the food is hot, and I can eat it when opening it,” resident Ju Shiyi said.

Jiading Town set up the central kitchen in August through the purchase of services by government and arranged 26 volunteers at each meal to improve efficiency and management.

The volunteers collect the boxes needed for the following day and send the number to the central kitchen to prepare food, avoiding waste or shortages.

They use a minivan instead of an electric tricycle to deliver the lunch boxes to shorten the delivery time.

The kitchen is divided into areas for cooking, dining and disinfection. In order to ensure the food safety, in addition to showing the relevant documents, the catering company also needs to test the ingredients before and after cooking and keeps samples of the food for 48 hours for inspection.

The central kitchen also regularly changes the menu to ensure that the dishes are seasonal and fresh for them.

All the 12 towns in Jiading have central kitchens. There are 130 dining canteens for seniors, providing around 5,000 lunch boxes each day.