A high-quality senior food menu program is essential to the health and well-being care center residents. In fact, cuisine is often a deciding factor for seniors and their families when choosing a residential facility.
To help ensure mealtime satisfaction, assisted living facilities and nursing homes are rethinking their approach to developing menus for seniors. Below are three tried-and-true strategies for creating a successful food program.
No. 1: Incorporate Fresh and Seasonal Foods
Canned and frozen prepared foods are simple to heat and serve, which makes them perfect menu program choices in terms of quick and easy food production. But, when too many of these products are used in menus for seniors, the meals lack flavor – and resident satisfaction suffers.
Incorporating more fresh and seasonal foods into the menu program is a great way to maximize flavor and boost mealtime enjoyment.
Sure, providing a fresh food dining strategy may result in increased expenses, but sourcing the products locally can help lower the cost. And, with tastier fresh foods and seasonal menus, seniors are likely to eat more at mealtime – which means they may require fewer costly supplements.
No. 2: Make Choice a Part of the Food Menu Program
The most successful food programs for senior communities incorporate choice. Like anyone else, residents of adult care facilities appreciate being able to make their own dining decisions.
Restaurant-style dining, with increased dietitian-approved menu options, can help make seniors happy at mealtime. Serving up dishes from mobile steam carts or satellite stations is another well-liked menu program strategy.
Choice isn’t just about the food, however. Increased flexibility with the dining schedule allows seniors with busier lifestyles or irregular appetites eat when they’re ready.
Providing choices requires more sophisticated meal planning and food preparation. But, the added effort and expense pay off in terms of mealtime satisfaction. And, with varied food menus, many senior care communities are able to generate additional revenue – visiting family and friends often decide to share a meal with the residents.
No. 3: Put the Spotlight on Food Menu Service
Providing a higher level of service at mealtime is another key strategy for a successful food menu program. Seniors want — and deserve – to be treated with respect and dignity, not as mouths that need to be fed.
Elevating the dining experience can be as simple as providing hospitality training to the food service staff. High employee turnover can bring up the menu planning program costs, though, so adult care facilities may benefit from improving their recruitment efforts. In some cases, working with a food service management company can be an effective method to attract reliable, professional employees.
Transforming your meal planning program to make the menus for seniors more appealing may not be easy, and doing so may increase your food service costs. Fortunately, Grove Menus can help.
The comprehensive Grove Menus meal planning system includes an integrated suite of easy-to-use mealtime planning tools and hundreds of dietitian-approved menus. With us, improving resident satisfaction is simple and cost-effective. To learn more or to schedule a complimentary demonstration of our food menu program, contact us today.