HC-One’s Chris Bonner has been promoted to the newly formed role of Executive Chef/Nutrition and Hydration Lead, following the success and accomplishments he achieved in his prior role as HC-One’s Development Chef.
In his new role, Chris will be responsible for the development of HC-One’s culinary offer, working with internal and external teams to create exciting and innovative concepts and an exceptional customer service for those living in HC-One care homes. Chris will centrally co-ordinate and direct the work of HC-One’s Development Chefs to ensure that HC-One’s care homes provide quality and nutritional menus through the training and development of its onsite teams.
Chris’ promotion follows his triumph in winning ‘The Workforce Development Award’ Category at the North East Region of the Great British Care Awards 2022 in November. This means Chris has progressed to the National Finals of the Great British Care Awards 2023 taking place on Friday 17th March at the ICC in Birmingham.
Chris was nominated for the award by Mark Meacham, Head of Catering and Housekeeping Support Services at HC-One, due to Chris’ understanding of the critical role that food and nutrition plays in the life of Residents living in care homes.
During his time working at HC-One, Chris has gone from strength to strength, showing incredible enthusiasm and determination in identifying training and development needs of care Colleagues. Chris has established training programmes, searching and gaining funding when needed and has proven that he can enthuse and energise Colleagues to attend and request training to further enhance and develop their skill set and progress in their careers.
Chris has been in the catering industry spanning different sectors over the past 25 years. He previously worked as a Head Chef for five years at Helen McArdle Care, before the group was acquired by HC-One. Chris’ skills and talent were quickly noticed, and he was promoted to the new role of Development Chef for HC-One.
Every day Chris looks forward to working with Residents and continually improving all aspects of HC-One’s food offer. Chris inspires chefs on a daily basis with his inspirational approach to food and understanding of the critical role that food and nutrition plays in the life of our Residents.
Some of Chris’ notable achievements since joining HC-One include producing a special diets program to provide specific recipes and menus for a variety of complex dietary requirement including cultural and religious, vegan and vegetarian; providing a whole home approach suite of training materials to implement the International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation (IDDSI) Initiative to ensure that those with a swallowing difficulty live their best life and creating the HC-One quarterly seasonal menus.
Chris Bonner, Executive Chef/Nutrition and Hydration Lead at HC-One, said:
“I am really pleased to take on this new role as Executive Chef/Nutrition and Hydration Lead at HC-One, working alongside Mark and other members of the Catering and Housekeeping Support Team as well as Development Chefs and Colleagues working across our HC-One care homes to best support our homes in delivering quality and nutritional meals to our Residents.”
Mark Meacham, HC-One’s Head of Catering and Housekeeping Support Services, stated:
“I am delighted to announce Chris’ promotion and appointment as Executive Chef/Nutrition and Hydration Lead at HC-One.
“Chris has made a huge impact at HC-One during his time with the company and brings great amount of experience to this new role. Chris’ creativity and user-centric design of food adds to Residents’ quality of life and care, while meeting their nutritional goals for modified diets.
“He is a true asset to HC-One. Chris’ promotion is well deserved, he works hard and shows kindness to his fellow Colleagues. I’m really proud of Chris, he is a role model to others, and he’s achieved some amazing results through the work he has carried out. I look forward to seeing what Chris goes on to achieve next in his new role.”