See how Long Island Jewish Valley Stream Hospital's new farm-to-hospital partnership raises the bar on hospital food

The underwhelming caliber of much of the nation’s hospital food is, for Russell Ficke, a tough pill to swallow. The executive chef at Long Island Jewish Valley Stream Hospital has sought to reverse this trend. For more than five years, he and his staff have been striving to ensure that everything that leaves the hospital kitchen is restaurant-quality fare.

His meals not only strictly use fresh, organic ingredients but are tailored to meet each patient’s clinical dietary needs.

“Hospital food has a bad reputation,” said Ficke. “We’ve been trying to work on the quality of the food by doing local, fresh, and organic wherever possible because we believe that food is medicine.”

The hospital is furthering its commitment by recently teaming up with Crossroads Farm at Grossmann’s — its latest farm-to-hospital partnership. Each week, the Malverne-based farm will deliver anywhere between 100 to 300 pounds of fresh, seasonal produce to the hospital for patients’ meals. So far, Ficke has designed his menu around whatever produce the farm has in surplus.

“We’ve been getting a lot of tomatoes, so I’ve been making tomato sauce. Tailoring myself to them,” he said. “Next season, it will look more like a 50-50 partnership where I will request specific items for them to grow for the menu.”

Michael D’Angelo, operations manager at Crossroads Farm, is eager for the future of this joint venture.

“We’re going to be sitting down with them in the next month or so, to really talk about what they would really like and see more of,” said D’Angelo. “We’re going to be growing for them specifically next year, instead of just really working with surplus.”

A new era of hospital food

For decades, attention to food quality, observers note, has ranked low on hospitals’ priority lists. Scanty food budgets and tightfisted spending have led several hospitals nationwide to stock their vending machines and line their cafeteria counters with processed, pre-packaged, and mass-produced meals. Food options that are — overall — fast, cheap, and convenient.

Health experts say the price for that inexpensive convenience is steep next to the health toll it exacts on patients.

A well-cited study published by The Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition found that one in three hospitalized adults in the country is at risk for malnutrition. Leaving their meals uneaten, patients are putting their lives in peril. The problem, Ficke argues, lies at the foot of how hospitals outsource and prepare their dishes.

Food that scores high on taste and freshness has fewer “pesticides,” preservatives, and ultra-processed chemicals, says Ficke. The fewer artificial add-ons on someone’s plate, the better that person feels and potentially the sooner their recovery.

Locally sourced, deliciously served

“The advantage of locally sourced fruits and vegetables is that you get them at the peak of their freshness and flavor,” he said. “When cooked properly, you don’t need to load it up with sodium or bury it in heavy sauces and butter or cream to make it taste good.”

According to D’Angelo, all produce harvested at Crossroads Farm is “naturally grown” and shipped under conditions meant to maximize its freshness.

“Produce is put through our wash station where they are dunked in cold water and sit there for some time,” he said. “They are then transferred to our cooling station to ensure those greens can last in the fridge for up to a week.” 

Ficke says the Northwell Health system, the hospital’s parent company, now leads in outpatient satisfaction, citing the widely used Press Ganey survey. Reviews are across-the-board positive in the areas of food quality and courtesy. The hospital’s transformed menu has cut down on the number of meals being sent back to the kitchen or thrown in the trash.

Gone are the days of nurses and doctors having to arm-twist patients into eating food that might check off certain dietary requirements for their illness but offends their palette.

The true cost of better hospital fare

But investing in better food service, whether by hiring executive chefs or nutritionists, can often prove prohibitively expensive. This is particularly true for some hospitals already strained to their financial limits diverting resources into other urgent challenges like staffing shortages.

Thanks in large part to the powerful backing of the Northwell Health system, Russell has the resources and guidance to raise the hospital’s culinary bar to exceptional heights. It’s the reason this year’s summer dishes — from breakfast Belgian waffles to Duck Confit and Friée Salad for “lighter fare” — bear an uncanny resemblance to something offered up at an upscale eatery.

And it’s the reason the hospital can foot the bill for volumes of homegrown, in-season produce each week.

“[Northwell] pays the going market price for local organic produce which you can buy from another wholesaler,” said D’Angelo.

According to Ficke, the hospital currently sources 20 to 30 percent of its produce from Crossroads Farm, the rest sourced from large fresh food distributors like Baldor. The goal is to increase the farm’s contribution as it expands its production capacity.

Ficke says the value of the product is worth its added price. Stakeholders also note that while public health institutions widely embrace the benefits of organic whole foods, hospital food options have sorely lagged in taking their own recommendations seriously.

The World Health Organization says research shows eating more ultra-processed foods, like packaged snacks and sugary drinks, significantly boosts the risk of cancer and heart diseases.

LIJV’s farm-to-hospital is shattering the old paradigm of hospital fare and D’Angelo says it motivates growers like himself to continue their efforts.

“We don’t often get to see the final destination of all the stuff that we grow,” he said. “Knowing that the food that we’re growing, the food that we’re putting so much work into, is going to help people when they’re not having their best days and needs their nutrition, there’s no words to describe the way we feel about this.”

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