Reimagining Hospital Catering: apetito Introduces a New Era of Retail Dining

This week at the 2025 Healthcare Catering Live conference in Birmingham, apetito, the leading provider of healthcare meals, unveiled its brand-new vision for hospital staff and visitor dining, introducing a selection of innovative concepts to attendees aiming to elevate catering across healthcare settings.

With over 25 years of delivering high-quality, nutritious meals that support patient recovery, the meals provider is now expanding beyond the bedside - introducing flexible catering solutions set to redefine the future of staff and visitor dining. 

This expansion reflects the business’ dedication to enhancing mealtimes across the whole healthcare community, providing a quality, convenient and reliable solution for all meal provisions. 

During the conference, apetito presented two solutions currently being trialled with selected partner sites: a hot grab-and-go option that brings nutritious meals in a ready-to-eat format for those short on time and a build-your-own street food style option featuring varied and vibrant cuisines. A third solution can also be explored by hospitals which consists of a range of classic favourites served up from a traditional servery. 

All three flexible solutions utilise the existing high-quality products and efficient systems from apetito, whilst meeting the varied demands of retail catering, such as accessible food on-the-go and convenient options that cater for specialist dietary requirements. 

Neil Hargreaves, general manager of healthcare at apetito spoke on this exciting expansion into staff and visitor catering, saying: “Whilst it is essential that patients are receiving good nutrition during their stay, it is also important that those working across the hospital and visiting loved ones are supported, nourished and fuelled.

“We are extremely excited to be expanding into this new aspect of hospital catering, utilising our knowledge and expertise from decades of servicing the sector to enhance meal operations across the whole estate, ensuring that everyone has access to a high-quality and nutritionally balanced meal when they need it.

“Our solution can also help you serve staff and visitors more efficiently, by reducing prep, cooking time and clean-up, as well as levels of food waste – supporting sustainability and operational efficiency.

“Introducing this new offering during our 25th anniversary celebration event in July and at Healthcare Catering Live has been an excellent way to gather insightful feedback from across the industry, helping us to continue shaping and improving the offering as we embark on this new journey.” 

If you would like more information on how apetito can support staff and visitor dining at your hospital, please get in touch on healthcare@apetito.co.uk or visit apetito.link/healthcare