The Commission and the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (department) are committed to supporting improvements to food, nutrition and dining in aged care. We’re continuing our free national Menu and Mealtime Review Program in 2026–27 because we know how important a positive dining experience is for older people’s health, wellbeing and quality of life. The earlier rounds in 2024–25 and 2025–26 helped 1,000 homes improve their food, nutrition and dining experience.
This joint program is for approved residential care homes, with up to 300 places available in 2026-27.
Feedback from homes that have already taken part in the program is that they find the review and recommendations helpful.
The program provides selected providers with a menu and mealtime assessment for their nominated home/s by an Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD). This gives providers an opportunity to review their obligations against Standard 6: Food and nutrition of the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards.
This standard is about working with older people to find out what they like to eat and drink. It’s also about providing food and drinks that meet each older person’s needs and preferences. This includes regularly reviewing menus and mealtime service to make sure the food, drinks and dining experience are meeting each person’s needs.
How to apply
Providers can apply for one or more of their homes to receive a Menu and Mealtime Review by submitting an expression of interest (EOI) form by 5 October 2026. We will choose the homes, and Plena Healthcare, the contracted supplier, will contact them directly to arrange the review. We will prioritise homes based on the criteria explained below. When the EOI closes, if we still have places available, we’ll open a waitlist. Joining the wait list however doesn’t guarantee a review.
About the program
Up to 300 homes will receive a Menu and Mealtime Review in 2026–27.
Each review is free and confidential. They provide specific feedback and recommendations for each home after an onsite assessment by an Accredited Practising Dietitian. The process includes:
- meeting with management staff
- evaluating the menu
- assessing the dining environment and older persons’ mealtime experience, including how well it supports older people to eat and drink safely and happily (enjoyment)
- reviewing documents about how the service delivers food, nutrition and dining services, such as policies, procedures and feedback registers
- providing a written report and having a feedback meeting to help services keep improving.
The mealtime review isn’t a regulatory activity. We don’t get a copy of the report. The report is confidential and only goes to the provider, the home and the assessing dietitian.
The assessing dietitian will provide a short summary report to the department. They will only use this for developing policy.
The home can take part in a brief online survey about their experience of the review. This will help us to evaluate the program. Homes can choose to do the survey anonymously.
Eligibility and prioritisation criteria
This program is only for approved residential care homes. This includes homes that provide services under the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care (NATSIFAC) and Multi-Purpose Services (MPS) programs.
Homes that have already taken part in the program won’t be able to take part again, unless they’ve had a change in provider since their first review.
As there are only up to 300 places, we will prioritise applications from homes that:
- provide services under the NATSIFAC program
- have a score lower than 3 out of 4 in the Residents' experience survey question, ‘Do you like the food here?’ (based on the average response) or have no score because they’re a new or recently transferred service
- are in small rural towns, remote communities and very remote communities
- are smaller homes (with 60 residents or less)
- are small providers (with 1–2 services)
- are medium providers (with 3–10 services)
If there are enough places left, a small number of homes that don’t meet these criteria may also get a review.
Questions about the program
If you have any other questions, please contact us:
- email info@agedcarequality.gov.au (using subject ‘Menu and mealtime review program enquiry’)
- call the Food, Nutrition and Dining Hotline on 1800 844 044 (9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday).
Is this a monitoring activity or an audit?
No, it’s not a regulatory activity.
The program is one of the Australian Government’s initiatives to support providers to deliver great food, nutrition, and dining experiences in residential aged care services. An independent dietitian does the reviews. They’re not from our Food, Nutrition and Dining Advisory Support Unit. The Menu and Mealtime Review isn’t a Commission monitoring or audit activity. It’s different from our food, nutrition and dining targeted monitoring program, which is a regulatory activity.
We already use dietetic services in our aged care home, can we still take part in the program?
Providers that have professional dietetic services can still apply to take part in this program.
Can our own dietitian do the review under this program?
No. The department ran an open-market request for proposal through AusTender and entered a contract with Plena Healthcare in 2024. This contract has been extended into 2026–27. Under the contract, independent APDs from Plena Healthcare do these reviews.
To make sure that any possible conflicts of interest are effectively managed, and to avoid any possible bias, Plena uses dietitians that are independent of the service to do the review. Meaning dietitians who don’t work at the service.