Kiwi food technology innovator The Pure Food Co has signed a landmark deal with the second largest aged care provider in Australia, extending the business’ coverage to 7000 more residents and providing them with “food experiences” at the end of their lives.
The deal for an undisclosed sum will see The Pure Food Co provide its high-quality, nutritious, texture-modified food to Regis Aged Care’s 67 facilities across Australia and serve up to 50,000 meals a month.
Regis will be The Pure Food Co’s largest client among the more than 50 operators the business supports in Australia, and for co-founder and chief executive Sam Bridgewater, it’s a massive moment in the Ōtāhuhu-based company’s growth.
“Aussie is now the biggest part of our business, with almost 450 aged care and health facilities there relying on The Pure Food Co to support residents and patients on specialised, texture-modified diets,” Bridgewater said.
“Our success there, as well as our growing presence in France, is proof that New Zealand companies can make it on the world stage. Kiwi ingenuity is not bound by borders.”
The rollout follows a successful pilot programme across several Regis Homes, where the positive impact on residents’ dining experiences was evident.
Regis Aged Care’s managing director and chief executive Linda Mellors said the move provides an exciting opportunity to create new products and offer more choice and nutritious options for residents.
“Partnering with The Pure Food Co for this subset of meal types underscores our unwavering commitment to continuously enhance the dining experience and providing the best options for our residents,” Mellors said.
“We are working closely with The Pure Food Co to develop new products tailored to our residents’ needs and preferences. The range of products will be offered during lunch and dinner services only, ensuring a variety of flavourful and nutritious options.”
The mentality of innovation from isolation has driven the business to new heights, with more than 220,000 people in residential aged care in Australia alone, with 30% of them on some form of texture-modified diet. The opportunity for Bridgewater is more than just financial.
“That’s equivalent to the entire population of Rotorua needing the kind of specialised support we provide.”
“The problem we set out to solve is a problem affecting older people right across the globe, so it’s only natural that we have global ambitions. We’ve always said we want to nourish the world’s seniors, not just New Zealand’s.”
That drive has seen the business expand its reach to cover every public hospital in New Zealand, as well as 80% of the country’s aged care facilities.
The business has also expanded into Europe with co-founder Maia Royal in charge of its French operation, likewise providing their unique food innovation to aged care providers there.
The company was co-founded by Bridgewater and Royal back in 2013 after Bridgewater’s stepfather became seriously ill.
His experience within the health system had him unable to find meals he wanted to eat, in turn slowing his recovery.
That experience inspired Bridgewater to want to make a difference.
The Pure Food Co’s Ōtāhuhu factory is the engine room of the operation. It opened a short time before the initial Covid-19 lockdown back in 2020.
Built to accommodate 15 times the growth, the 500sq m facility is largely separated into three sections, the kitchen, packaging and storage, and distribution.
Two vessels in the site’s kitchen hold roughly a tonne of locally-sourced food which is layered to ensure the flavours are experienced in the final product, whether that’s roast vegetables, caramelised onions or even balsamic vinegar.
Next, protein and other essential nutrients are specifically added to make up for deficiencies found in older generations.
The nutrient-enhanced food is then precisely heated to certain temperatures and then cooled to ensure the correct flavours, colours and textures are present in the end product.
There are over 10,000 New Zealanders in aged care facilities that require texture-modified food, let alone in hospital care, so ensuring the process is done down to detail is critical.
“This place is full of engineers, dietitians, food technologists. They’re using certain machines to just check the texture of the foods and getting way more scientific about it than someone in the back blocks of Toowoomba who’s just throwing a meal into a blender and trying to get a very technical texture with little training or equipment to be able to do so.”
The final step of the process is moulding the food into specific shapes, something Pure Foods' customers say increases consumption by 40%.
Bridgewater explained that years of work went into the “Frankenstein-esque” machine that makes the process possible, but there’s also the psychology behind it.
“When this stands in front of someone and it’s a homogeneous form, there’s all these lines and these contours and these shapes that are designed to add the illusion of texture through shadow and lines and the like, but then be completely safe for someone to eat.”
“Those cues really prime someone to want to eat it. That is one of the reasons why people consume more because all of those sensory elements and then the organoleptic properties all come together.”
In the company’s early days when it won at the New Zealand Food Awards, the product came in a pouch with none of the added technology.
Bridgewater said that at the time, the wider industry couldn’t understand it. However, he believes now the bigger players are starting to come around to it.
In the storeroom, temperatures are kept incredibly cold, including within a blast freezer set to -18C.
“It’s quite molecular in terms of how big the ice crystals are to create the right texture, and that’s how we can do things at an industrial-level scale that people can’t do on their kitchen benches.”
“Even if you’ve got great chefs, even if you’ve got commercial freezers, they can’t manage the texture and the taste and the colour in the way that we can here.”
Up next is distribution. In New Zealand, Pure Foods runs its own distribution, but the deal with Regis in Australia only expands on its exports across the Tasman.
Bridgewater explained that in the early days, the business was air freighting a pallet to Australia every now and then. Now, the business is sending a 40ft container nearly every week.
According to Bridgewater, the business is on track to hit a billion in revenue in the mid-term if it can execute its key strategies and initiatives, particularly around research and development.
A key point of difference that Bridgewater believes has set it apart from its competitors in the aged care industry is the wider system around the meals.
With Pure Foods' offering, more than 45,000 different combinations are possible. To accommodate the specialised Pure Food Co system, the business has provided Regis' team with more than 300,000 hours of training to their staff.
“Our competitors who just make a food product don’t deliver the system that sits around it as well.
“I can build you a solution for a problem you know you’ve got, but also build solutions for problems that people don’t even recognise that they’ve got and that’s where we’re trying to go.”
In an inspiring turn, Bridgewater’s stepfather survived his illness and has been able to see his experience inspire a now international movement.
“He’s incredibly proud. He’s proud that his experience, though challenging for him, has contributed to some real good. He knows people who consume Pure Foods every day and that it makes a difference in their lives.”
For Bridgewater, the scale of the business' impact isn’t lost on him.
“I’m incredibly proud of the impact that we now have at scale and not just creating those better outcomes for people consuming the foods, but also the people who are caring for them.”
“Seeing what my mum was going through, I saw how tough it was, and seeing their lives made easier and the organisations that care for people as well, seeing that we can help them. It’s not just myself, but you know our current team, our past and present team, everyone’s quite proud of that impact.”
“That’s what gets us up and keeps us going, particularly when you’re in full growth mode and there’s a lot going on, that’s a real driver for us.”
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business and retail.
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