Aged care facilities who choose to outsource their catering usually do so for a desire to save time, money, or both. However sometimes when making that decision, we can lose sight of who these decisions should be made in the best interest of: the residents. Aged care residents spend so much of their time gathered around the dining table that it inevitably becomes a focal point of their day, and for the sake of their quality of life, it’s important that facilities make maintaining a high standard of catering a priority.
When considering your choice of aged care catering companies, it’s essential to partner your facility with a caterer who places the residents first. By partnering with a resident-focused caterer who is genuinely concerned with providing your residents with high quality, freshly prepared (and most importantly, delicious) meals, your residents stand to benefit greatly – as do you.
Taste of Cater Care: Our Taste of Cater Care Recipe Program connects our growing community each season through food by sharing a favourite recipe that can be enjoyed by family and friends, then passed on for others to enjoy. Where possible, we also serve these recipes at our food service operations.
An Apple a Day…
The greatest benefit of choosing to partner with a resident-focused catering company is the improvements your residents stand to gain to their nutrition and overall level of health. In comparison to the limited benefits of reheated, pre-packaged or low-cost meals provided by cost-focused aged care catering companies, a freshly cooked nutritious menu designed by dietitians and executed by experienced chefs is far more likely to deliver quality nutrition with genuinely enticing flavours that are bound to excite and delight your residents. In turn, your residents are more likely to finish their meals, placing them at a lower risk of malnutrition and requiring less in the way of dietary supplements.
It Takes A Village
Beyond the physical health benefits, there are undoubtedly psychological ones too. Aged care residents are some of those most at risk of their mental health taking a toll with feelings of isolation and loneliness. Sharing meals together in a community setting can be a key aspect of socialisation to make up for that. When the food provided in the home is of a consistently high quality, then residents will typically spend longer socialising more happily, while being more inclined to finish their meals and generally maintain a higher quality of life from the basis of good food (Koh & Thirumanickam, 2022).
Tailored to Perfection
In-house catering solutions may be the easiest way for administrations to feed their residents, but they’ll be far and away from being the best solution available. Aged care catering companies that take a special interest in the quality of their food often have extensive experience in providing tailored menus to meet the specific dietary needs and preferences of residents, beyond the dietitian-designed seasonal menus already offered. This can help to ensure that each and every one of your residents are receiving all the nutrition they need to lead happy and healthy lives, all in a form that’s enjoyable to them.
Fast, Flexible, and Easy
Compliance work is expensive, time consuming, and rather like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge – once you’ve finished one portion, you’ll need to start the other half all over again. Maintaining compliance in any area of operations requires expensive time and effort, and with pressing concerns like medical and living standards compliance taking immediate priority, catering compliance risks falling by the wayside. With these difficulties pressing down on your staff, how much easier would it be if you simply… didn’t have to?
This can be an enormous advantage of partnering with a resident-focused catering company. An outsourced catering partner will care for your catering compliance from beginning to end, freeing up your staff to focus on their core duties. With a truly food focused catering partner, your administration can rest easy knowing that their passion for food ensures that there’s no chance of any corners being cut.
Next Steps
With all these factors in mind, it’s key that you consider the heart and culture of your potential catering partner before committing to a partnership. A quick and easy catering solution from an en-masse caterer may be cost effective, but will struggle to hold a candle to the real world benefits of a caterer who is genuinely passionate about the quality of their food. If you’re concerned about the overall quality of your facility’s catering and want to take your food game to the next level, reach out to the Cater Care team to discuss solutions today or download our latest eBook: Risks and Rewards: In house vs Outsourced catering.
Jonathan Storer
Client Development Manager – Cater Care
Ph: 0424 190 566
jonathan.storer@catercare.com.au
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References
Koh, R. T. G., Thirumanickam, A., & Attrill, S. (2022). How are the mealtime experiences of people in residential aged care facilities informed by policy and best practice guidelines? A scoping review. BMC geriatrics, 22(1), 1-18.
