For adult daycare facilities, food menus and the food service process can present a host of logistical challenges.
Unlike a residential care setting, day-based care programs often lack a dedicated food service staff to handle menu planning, ordering and preparation. Using a professional menu planning system is a practical and cost-effective way to overcome these challenges and improve the bottom line.
The Challenge of Food Menus in an Adult Daycare Setting
In a group or care home setting, where residents must be served meals multiple times throughout the day, a dedicated food service staff handles tasks that include menu planning, purchasing, preparation, and service. In the adult daycare setting, however, those tasks may comprise only a small part of staff member duties.
Adult daycare facilities typically serve the needs of a diverse participant base. Some participants may be able to consume a regular diet, while others require specialized food menus or consistency modifications.
The menu planning process, a logistically complex endeavor, can become lost among the many other challenges that administrative and support staff face.
Gathering Recipes and Resources Requires Time and Effort
In many adult daycare settings, staff members gather recipes and analyze nutritional needs as a part of establishing and planning food menus.
Shopping and order lists are then prepared by hand, based on estimated quantities. If participant counts change, or if special dietary considerations arise, the potential for ingredient shortages and food waste become more compelling.
As a result, per-serving costs rise, along with frustration levels of your staff and administration. If nutritional adequacy is lost, or if special dietary needs are not met, the facility may face compliance challenges or profit status threats.
Fortunately, a professional menu planning system can assist in overcoming these challenges.
Food Menu Planning Tools Take the Guesswork Out of Food Service
An automated food menu planning system provides a suite of valuable resources for adult daycare facilities. Preloaded recipes can be selected and menus planned well in advance. If counts change, as they are prone to do in a day-based setting, pick, pull and prep lists are automatically adjusted.
The Grove Menus planning system features a database of recipes, all extensively tested and dietitian-approved. The system is fully scalable and offers a robust interface for special diet and food consistency modifications.
Adopting the Grove Menus program will allow the adult daycare facility to improve food quality and participant satisfaction while reducing waste and food service labor. The ability to reduce costs and reallocate staff hours can vastly improve the profit potential for daycare facilities of any size and scope.
Contact Grove Menus today to learn more about our institutional meal planning system. We can provide a live demonstration of our user-friendly program, and show you how easy it is to improve this troublesome aspect of your business.
Grove Menus is the industry’s leading expert in residential care meal and food menu planning systems.