$14.50 is the food budget per resident per day in one aged care facility. That’s $4-$5 for each meal. Clients expect that amount to be spent and they understand what they’re getting. However, when items in the meals are costed at retail prices, the total is closer to $8-$10.
$14.50: three meals a day, plus morning and afternoon tea. On a resident’s plate is perhaps one sausage, or a solitary chicken thigh, with a tablespoon of frozen vegetables and a splash of Deb packet mashed potato. One eye of bacon on Sunday morning. Custard with everything. It’s a minimal amount made from poor-quality ingredients.
Yet the regulator (ACQSC) approves it, despite the disparity between what’s on the plate and on the labyrinthine printed menu (“Roast lamb with rosemary, Greek potatoes, fresh vegetables”). They respond to the carefully curated photographs sent by management, in theory making the menu appear compliant: but the finished product relies on ingredient quality, kitchen capacity…and the chef.
There is at present no information about the daily costing of food for residents in the centres themselves. It’s only available online under the Aged Star Rating Programme. Residents are unlikely to access it. Only 10 of 130 residents can speak for themselves at this centre, but they could and they do. But their concerns are brushed aside.
In this facility, even the chef and the management did not know the daily food budget per resident. If providers don’t communicate with residents about where their money goes, and they are not responding to complaints, they should not assume no response means satisfaction. It means something else.
The Statement of Rights in the new Aged Care Act, Standard 1, November 2025 claims: “I have a right to be treated with dignity and respect…” (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2025, Standard 1).
And according to the Australian Aged care and Safety Commission (2025, Outcome 6.2),“It is important that providers engage with older people to deliver a choice of meals that are full of flavour, appetising and nutritious…” Food in this aged care centre barely skims the surface of the National Australian Guidelines.
For example, two serves of fresh fruit per day are recommended; aged care residents have two serves a week. Despite the guidance to “avoid desserts, sweets and sugary drinks”, these arrive twice daily, even though it’s widely known that ultra processed food increases the risk of dementia. Then, in terms of protein, it’s prescribed that residents consume one gram of protein per kilo of bodyweight to maintain muscle mass and deter frailty – however most are only fortunate to eat 40 grams per day.
In one aged care centre, a (theoretically) formal complaint chain exists:
In practice, the chain breaks – often. Residents are reluctant to voice their concerns – not because they don’t have them, but because they depend on the people they are complaining to.
A monthly Food Focus meeting produces no documented action. Residents’ criticisms are dismissed at all levels, despite apparent empathy and misleading promises. Leaders need to ask: does the feedback mechanism surface what’s happening, or does it produce silence? Is the provider’s aim to silence any dissent by simply ignoring it till it goes away?
If your food allocation is not being spent on food, where is it going? If the feedback system isn’t producing complaints, is that because there are none? Or because the system isn’t safe to use. What does your current spend-per-resident-per-day look like and does your leadership team actually know the numbers?
Is there a breakdown between the law, the budget and the staffing? Is it appropriate to have a podiatrist on your allied health service team and supervising the dietitians? Why is there no monitoring of residents? Why do you choose not to make any change? These are not rhetorical questions. They are questions a provider is increasingly positioned to ask.
