The said meal standardisation project, devised by its owner, 29-year-old Diana Gluhak, is expected to grant facilities that obtain Health Meal Standard certificates, a competitive level of quality almost nonexistent at present in the world.
Presenting the project at the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) together with Damir Jezek, a professor at the Zagreb Faculty of the Zagreb Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, Gluhak said this was a unique and the first such system of food certification in the world.
It consists of carefully thought-out hospital menus and menus for people with special health requirements and meals that are expected to be much tastier than food in hotels and other tourist facilities currently is.
"The standards have been defined in line with global food trends and a growing number of noninfectious diseases caused by food of poor quality, primarily food with a high sugar content, as well as trends in health tourism. It is primarily intended to educate cooks and other staff in designing menus and the certification process itself lasts five years," said Gluhak.
The Healthy Meal Standard currently covers seven areas, for which individual certificates can be sought and based on which a facility can obtain so-called health stars.
Those areas are obesity, diabetes, hypertension, low or gluten-free menus, lactose-free menus, children menus and menus for athletes.
Most of the areas cover chronic diseases caused by poor nutrition that are on the increase globally.
"For the time being, the project focuses on health tourism facilities and other similar facilities, including hotels, but other interested clients can apply as well," said Gluhak.
The certificates will be issued by the Health Meal Standard company, owned by Gluhak.
An advisor to the Tourism Minister, Ivo Basic, said Gluhak had devised an innovative project that could contribute to the overall quality of tourism services.
Health tourism is one of the 10 main products of the Croatian tourism and such projects are welcome the more so as tourists globally increasingly want diverse, balanced and nutritionally valuable food while travelling, Basic said, adding that his ministry supported the project and believed in it.