This morning, I started at 6am. I cooked thirteen bags of potatoes, six bags of carrots along with cabbage and various other vegetables. I roasted beef, turkey, gammon, chicken and made Irish stew. This all needs to be done before 11 o’clock because the meals have to be chilled and packed for delivery.
Kevin Hession is describing a typical day as one of a core team of professional chefs who produce fresh, healthy meals for COPE Galway’s social enterprise, Meals4Health. ‘There isn’t a minute to waste!’ Kevin jokes.
The production team operates to superior standards of care, patience and dedication. The Meals4Health mantra, Eat Well, Live Well, Age Well, drives the team forward in preparing over 300 nutritious meals a day. Each meal is nutritionally balanced to suit older people and others living with chronic illness, who require specialised nutritional support.
Kevin is passionate about the standard of the meals.
The workplace is also a social environment, one where Kevin feels particularly at home.
A Galway man from Ballybrit, Kevin cut his catering teeth during his 22-year army career, eventually holding a position of head chef, or ‘Cook Sargeant’. After travelling the world, Kevin began his chef’s journey with Community Catering in 2016. He later ran the kitchen at the COPE Galway Fairgreen Hostel for four years. After two subsequent years working at a nursing home, Kevin has recently returned to the Meals4Health kitchen, joking, “I had a funny feeling I would be back here again!”
He considers some of the key changes he noticed on his return, including enhanced, specialised equipment and a larger team:
Kevin, a proud father of 6 grown children, considers himself a very lucky man, having lived a life ‘some people only dream about’. He reflects on why he enjoys his work so much:
For futher information on Meals4Health, visit our website, www.meals4health.ie