This is an important area of research, given the urgent need to improve food and nutrition in aged care. However I have some concerns with the paper, outlined below:

1. Ethics - whilst the authors state that the studies have received ethical approval, it is critical that the consent and ethical review and approval is explicit around the use of email communication in this study. Have the senders given their consent/are aware that these are being used in research? Who kept the field notes and have they given consent for their use in research?
2. Methods - in general, the methods section of the manuscript lacks detai. There needs to be further description of what data were collected in the 3 studies (e.g. what questions were asked in the interviews, what were the aims of these studies). More detail is needed about how the emails were selected for inclusion in the study and the context in which these were sent - i.e. were they emails specifically asking about challenges, or are these any emails received by the researchers that mentioned these issues?) The timing of the studies should also be reported in the methods - at present the authors report that they were conducted over three years, but it would be important to state the years. Field notes are a legitimate source of data, however who kept these notes and how they were recorded and analysed needs to also be reported.
3. Use of complexity science - this was an exciting way to look at this data, however there was no discussion about exactly how a complexity science lens was applied. Was this used in the analysis, as a deductive framework approach (note typo here re: inductive and deductive). There is also little discussion about the theory of complexity science and exactly how using this lens has or will allow us to progress the agenda of enhanced research in this sector.
4. Rigour of qualitative analysis - this research appears to be part of a PhD program where the lead researcher has been immersed within the context for an extended period of time. This is a strength in terms of their tacit knowledge of how things are done, however there is also potential for bias and using this paper as a way of venting frustrations about how difficult research in this setting is. The authors should describe how they managed (or embraced) this, depending on their epistemology and ontology. Through the results, it is important that the authors clearly state what is rooted in the data and what is their own experience/interpretation e.g. the section sub-titled “ethical requirements” doesn’t refer to any data – is this your own experience, or within the data? Whilst none of this is necessarily “wrong” it is important to fully report and discuss the approach you have taken and how it may have influenced what you saw in the data.

A few additional minor comments are outlined below
- Specify in the abstract what n=28 refers to, may be better to state that you analysed data from 28 participants across 21 aged care facilities, rather than n=28 (which is ambiguous).
- Consider talking about the international landscape of aged care earlier in the introduction, initially I was concerned that this study was only written considering the Australian perspective)
- There are several grammatical errors throughout, including erroneous use of commas. Please conduct a final thorough proofread if the manuscript is to be resubmitted.