Food Management Services For Senor Assisted-Living Facilities
Assisted-living facilities can be uniquely challenging to manage because they house seniors of all different abilities. A particularly important part of your duties as an administrator includes ensuring all seniors in your facility can eat food that is both tasty and nutritious. Food management businesses can handle this daily, but ensure you select one which provides these services:
Delicious Meals of All Consistencies
Some seniors in your center might eat regular meals, but as they age or their health causes their chewing abilities still change, their diets may only allow soft foods or liquids. Avoid selecting a food management company whose regular meals you've sampled if you won't be sampling liquid offerings or some of the other consistencies. You might ask some residents to give feedback about different foods.
Specific Menus
Seniors can have low-salt, vegetarian, dairy-free and other special diets according to chronic conditions they have. Some centers offer one basic menu with elements that can be removed to suit special diets. When this is done, however, those on special diets might not be getting a full, complete meal. Check for food services that offer complete, separate meals to accommodate multiple diets.
High-Quality Ingredients
Of course, you are concerned about the source of the food that you'll be using to feed your residents. In fact, being able to highlight the food management company and their sourcing can make your facility even more attractive to the families who ultimately allow their residents to stay with your company. That's why you need to find out as much about food sourcing from food management companies as you can. For instance, do they work with sustainable growers? Do they use organic ingredients? The purer and higher-quality their food seems, the better chance that they might be more of a fit for your facility.
Nutritionist Planning
Even with the best ingredients and suitable menus, it may be important that your residents take in certain minerals and nutrients with each meal. Look for companies which use a team of nutritionists to plan and break down the nutritional makeup of each of the meals that will be offered. Calories should also be provided, as this can help your nursing staff to ensure that the residents are meeting their caloric goals for the day and week.
Food management is a critically important part of any assisted-living facility. With these considerations, your residents should be happy and their bellies full with the help of local food service management services.
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