Healthy food focus

Promoting health eating has hit Waikato Hospital’s bottom line as greasy food and sugary drinks are pulled from its menu.

In June, the Waikato DHB adopted the national healthy food and drink policy.

The policy requires DHBs to act as role models for their communities by promoting healthy food and drink choices.

Health boards have two years to implement the policy. Sugary drinks and deep fried food are no longer sold at Waikato Hospital’s Upper Deck Cafe and its four food outlets.

Waikato DHB director of business support Melinda Ch’ng said transactions at the hospital’s eateries were down 17.5 per cent in the 12 months to February due to the new healthy food policy.

However, the downturn was predicted and the overall impact on the health board’s budgets wasn’t major, Ch’ng said.

‘‘Less items are being sold but they tend to be the lower value items such as confectionery. People are now choosing to buy food that have a higher nutritional value and which may cost a bit more. Unhealthy food is no longer considered good value for money.’’

Ch’ng was unable to say how much revenue the hospital had lost by promoting health eating.

‘‘It’s not significant. We can’t use health dollars to subsidise our cafe but we also benchmark our prices and our intention is not to be a price leader.

‘‘We accept we’ve got a captive audience with a lot of staff working after hours. We need to recover our costs and be sustainable but not focus on profit-making.’’

The hospital cafe still sold baked goods, such as scones and cakes, but the portion sizes had been reduced.