According to data from AARP, most older adults 50+ (77%) want to age in place, which means staying in their homes rather than moving to a senior living community (SLC). However, as evidenced by decades of research and support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, all older adults are at risk for poorer health outcomes – making it difficult for this to remain possible for many seniors. With this in mind, choice is essential in senior living communities. How do you extend the freedom of choice to your residents, including those who may have had difficulty transitioning to your community? One way to do this is through your dining program.
Choosing what you want to eat is a luxury many of us take for granted, especially if we’re able-bodied and young. At Culinary Services Group, we’re all about embracing the uniqueness of every resident’s palette and health needs. We do this through our Culinary Promise Program, which promises to never lock you or your residents into a one-size-fits-all culinary arrangement. Keep reading to find out how we do this.
Custom Menus and How They Work
Staying true to our promise, we create flexible, tiered (and completely customizable) menu options. Our base menus include a variety of different features such as locally sourced ingredients, ranges of cultural foods, various made-in-house options, and pre-made foods.
The first step? Establishing a resident food committee. No one knows your residents’ preferences like they do, so surveying their level of satisfaction is vital to our Culinary Promise. We don’t stop there, though. Residents can continually submit feedback in different ways to help address changes proactively and in the moment rather than reactively. We use all this information to have an in-depth discussion about your community’s needs and how a custom menu can best suit them.
Conducting a monthly audit is also part of ensuring each of our clients is satisfied with the meal plan’s customization level. It includes an examination of key culinary and dining objectives and measures each of the six pillars of success.
Success Comes in Six Pillars
At Culinary Services Group, we aren’t afraid to try new things. However, we understand that not everyone else shares our excitement for variety – especially when it comes to food. That’s why customization is important. Our Culinary Promise’s six pillars of success work together to establish a foundation that allows us to constantly improve our customization process: made in-house, intentional and aware, well served, chef-created, sanitation and safety, and healthy and wholesome. Here’s a little more detail about each one.
- Our menu items are made in-house, using fresh, wholesale, and healthy ingredients.
- Our chefs, dietitians, and other team members are intentional and aware of the sustainability practices we implement. We ethically source environmentally sound ingredients and prioritize reducing food waste.
- Staff work on ensuring that meals are well-served through excellent customer service, aesthetic plating, and effortless delivery.
- Each meal is chef-created and based on customer preferences to create a memorable dining experience.
- We go above and beyond to follow sanitation and safety standards to maintain safe, clean kitchens.
- We offer a wide range of tasty menu options that are healthy and wholesome. Our menus also focus on promoting good physical and mental well-being.
Although they work together well, the pillars can also stand on their own. Part of what makes our customizable menus unique is that you can pick and choose from each value to create a program that works best for your location, operation, and resident preferences. For example, if your residents don’t eat much meat, you can include vegetarian options at every meal when developing your plan or during an audit. Your plan can also evolve and change, just like your community.
How Custom Menus Help Sustainability and Health
It’s clear that custom menus are beneficial, but how exactly do they promote sustainability and health? That’s an easy one. Health and wellness are vital to the well-being of your residents and to operating a holistic community. With a custom menu that accommodates residents’ different health conditions, they can have a broader diet and get the necessary nutrients. A common way we see this play out in senior living is with texture-modified diets for older adults with swallowing problems, dysphagia, or sensory/texture processing issues.
Sustainability is equally important to us, like freedom of choice, health, and quality. Even in senior living communities, food waste statistics are incredibly high, with up to 460 pounds of food ending up in landfills every year. Custom menus help us to do what we can to our overall environmental impact by things like eliminating foods your residents don’t like or that you notice are getting thrown away more than others, thereby decreasing food waste. Also, regardless of what features you choose for your menu, our Waste Tracker program is there to measure and monitor waste.
Even better, focusing on health and sustainability also helps to reduce costs. With a budget-conscious mindset, plus help from CSG’s culinary experts, having a well-rounded dining program is easy.
Join the Movement to Empower Choice
The freedom of choice is more than simply allowing residents to pick different aspects of their living situation; it removes the power difference between staff and residents and empowers the older adults in your community to remain independent, just like they’ve always been. Since food is a central part of the living experience, it’s time to prioritize culinary choice with the help of a food service management program that cares about the entirety of the dining experience. Empower your residents with the freedom of culinary choice now with Culinary Services Group.
Contact us to learn more about our Culinary Promise and speak with a member of our sales team.
