Savoring the Art of Cuisine
Tools to Maintain a Successful Dining Services Department
By Kelli M. Donley
 Administrators
of senior living facilities know one of the most important aspects of attracting
and maintaining residents is to provide healthy and delicious meals. Potential
residents and family members can have their watering mouths tempted by the scent
of chocolate chip cookies baking to perfection, honey-roasted turkeys simmering
in the oven and garlic mashed potatoes simmering. Cooking savory meals are
essential to the senior living industry. Organizing the staff and tools
necessary to provide a variety of healthy and interesting meals for residents
requires research, but is worth the investment.
Success Stories
Sheika Williams, Glen Burkel, Wanda Thomas and Michael Foster are part of the
dining services team at St. James Place. The senior retirement community based
in Baton Rouge, LA has 350 residents. The staff prepares some 600 meals per day.
"I like it when residents eat something I have cooked and it reminds
them of something in their past -- I enjoy hearing their stories," says
executive chef Michael Foster.
The team provides table service for their residents and has a buffet
available on Sundays.
Hal Lottis, director of dining services at Rogue Valley Manor in Medford,
Ore., says the number of meals his residents' receive daily is part of each
individual's contract. Lottis feeds more than 900 residents at the continuing
care retirement community.
 "We
are serving 1,800 meals a day," he says. "Approximately 100 of these
are in some form of nursing care, where they are either in the skilled nursing
or residential living special care (Alzheimer's wing) areas. These meals are
served in beautiful, small private dining rooms, with linens and table service
very similar to our full service dining rooms. We have two of these full service
dining rooms -- one is a buffet style, where we carve two different meats at the
end of the line each night. The other room is a combination of a buffet or a sit
down service, where they order off of a menu."
Lottis says the facility, one of seven managed by Pacific Retirement
Services, does not contract with a food service. Instead, they operate their own
food management service and have fresh produce and staples delivered daily.
"We do an all-scratch production," he says. "There is very
little prepared or frozen foods delivered. We have a large vegetable production
pantry crew that do all of the fruit and vegetable prep and makes all of our
salads. We have a bakery that creates all of the baked goods. We also have a
main kitchen where 80 percent of our meat is delivered fresh and 100 percent of
the fish is fresh."
Having a west coast location allows Lottis the luxury of offering a variety
of seafood items on his menu.
"We are in Dungeness crab country," he says. "So once a year
we have a Dungeness crab feast. We also have a lot of fresh salmon."
Serving such a large population, Lottis' staff must be prepared to meet
varied dietary needs.
"We easily accommodate diabetics in all of our dining rooms because of
our extensive salad bars, and broad, multiple choice entree menus," he
says. "Our chefs cook with reduced sodium usage and our certified dietary
managers, work closely with our nursing staff, and resident doctor's to minimize
diet restrictions. Our menu software program is capable of generating 15
different modified diets, but we have few residents that need these restrictive
diets."
Lottis says residents enjoy the variety of the extensive menu, but also crave
foods they grew up eating.
"We have a team of five chefs who are very creative and are always
coming up with new recipes," he says. "So, we expand. We have a lot of
standard, traditional foods the residents are used to. For example, we have
great sauerbraten, potato pancakes and red cabbage. We have a lot of people
living here who have worked in Asia and India and are really into hot curry
foods. So, we have a curry bar once a cycle and it makes your eyes water. We
have a seven-week cycle menu, so it is broad choice of items."
However, not all of the food prepared at the facility is served indoors.
"Recently we took 150 residents to one of the nearby state parks and had
a picnic," he says. "We barbequed hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken
breasts, and we had watermelon. While they were eating; our executive chef did a
demonstration on ice carving."
Additionally, special events and holidays provide Lottis' dining services
crew with additional challenges.
"We have summer games coming up -- it is a take off on the Olympic
games," he says. "Residents have competitions of lawn bowling to water
volleyball -- we have a large indoor pool. We have wheelchair races and we try
to include all residents. Some of the residents who cannot be up on their feet
anymore can still participate. We have ping pong, badminton -- the whole gamut
of sports. They have a big party at the end and they give out medals to the
winning teams. Then we have another barbeque.
"We have an enormous amount of resident volunteers that help with these
events. Once a year we have a volunteer appreciation day. We do a huge hors d'
oeuvre evening so very few people want dinner that night. We have five or six
stations set up in the main floor. They go from a pasta bar to a seafood bar to
fruit and veggie bar to a dessert bar. We serve champagne and wine and celebrate
the volunteers because they do such a great job of caring for each other. That
makes the manor the special place that it is."
Lottis, who has worked for the facility for more than 15 years, enjoys
providing delicious meals for his residents and keeping them healthy.
"It is a very exciting thing to see the cross-section of American come
together in their retirement years and enjoy this kind of lifestyle," he
says. "They are very appreciative. They enjoy life. It is just a great
opportunity. We have 150 employees in the dining services department and
everyone enjoys working as a team. We consider ourselves a team made up of a lot
of individual teams. We have a team of people waiting tables, or a team of
people peeling potatoes, we are working together to make this the success that
it is."
Brenda Hann, an administrator at Agoura Hills Senior Retreat in Agoura Hills,
California, says residents at her facility receive three meals daily in a
restaurant-style dining room. The facility serves 85 residents and dining
service employees are prepared to handle specialized diets if necessary. Hann
says residents look forward to their weekly gourmet treat.
"We have lobster or steak night once a week," she says. "And
there is never any leftovers. They also love our homemade cookies. We run out
daily."
Hann says the facility's full service kitchen also handles daily deliveries
of fresh fruits, vegetables and staples. She counts on a professional to help
create the necessary menus for residents.
"We work carefully with a contracted dietician who builds our
diets," she says.
Agoura Hills' residents also enjoy taking their meals outside occasionally.
"For the Fourth of July, we had barbequed ribs and chicken," she
says. "We have two large patios we like to use when it isn't too hot. We
like to prepare at least one meal outside during the summer."
Additionally, Hann says residents enjoy knowing who is preparing their meals.
"Our executive chef bakes the cookies himself and gives them to the
residents, who like the close contact."
Tools of the Trade
There are a myriad of companies that specialize in providing prepared foods
for different industries, including senior living communities. If administrators
do not want to deal with the challenges of creating vast menus, arranging
delivery times with a dozen vendors and ensuring all dietary needs can be
covered, they can contract these services to be provided.
One such provider is Advance Food Company, based in Enid, Oklahoma. The
company manufacturers a variety of breaded and unbreaded meat items.
"We offer a complete product line of beef, chicken, veal and pork
items," says corporate dietician Amy McLaughlin-Gray. "The company was
founded as the country fried steak experts, and we still are today. We have
grown our line of products to include Philly steaks, marinated chicken breasts
and have become a full-line veal manufacturer," she says.
The company has taken senior dietary needs into consideration when developing
new products as well.
"Our products are a great source of protein," she says. "We
also have lower sodium products."
A giant in the food industry, Kraft, also provides food to senior living
communities and has taken dietary needs into consideration.
"We have a lot of options for diabetic patients," says Renee Zahery,
director of communications for Kraft's Foodservice division. "We have many
sugar-free and fat-free products. We have a vast array of products and I think
we can cover just about any dietary need."
Based in Glenview, Illinois, Kraft provides a plethora of food products to
American grocery stores that are also now being distributed en masse.
"We have everything from Maxwell Coffee to A1 Sauce to Oscar Meyer meats
to Philly Cream Cheese -- basically a lot of the American retail brands you
would be familiar with under the Kraft umbrella," she says.
"Foodservice is a specific division that takes a lot of these brands and
packages them in bulk for the food service industry."
 Rather
than having food companies deliver their good directly, administrators can also
select a food distribution company to handle the coordination of many products
and brands.
"We purchase goods from many manufacturers and store them at various
warehouses nationally, then deliver what our customers choose," says Don
Tapper, MS, RD, LD, regional vice president of healthcare for US Foodservice.
"We carry every food item imaginable. Some places we don't carry fresh
seafood, but others we do, depending on how close we are to the product's
origin. We have basic meat, diary, canned foods, frozen foods, beverages,
etc."
The company also carries a variety of other items relating to the food
service industry, including software specifically tailored to meet the needs of
assisted living facility administrators and residents.
"Cygent Advantage is software that has an estimated 2,000 recipes,"
he says. "It has 10 weeks of menus already loaded. They (administrators)
can go back and make adjustments for regional or resident preferences. It also
gives them a component to track special dietary information about a resident if
necessary. It is a menu and recipe system and it has 11 special diet options are
available."
Tapper says the software sells for $1695.
Grills, Tongs and Spatulas
Cooking tools can be an expensive adventure, but a necessary route every
senior living facility administrator must travel.
"We have convection ovens, steam jacketed kettles, grills, full-sized
full restaurant equipped kitchens," Lottis says. "We use walk-in
refrigerators, sterile dishwashers ... a lot of equipment."
There are a plethora of companies that provide commercial kitchen equipment
and supplies. Information about these suppliers can be found on the following
Web sites:
Recognizing resident's desire for traditional foods, creative presentation
and quality cuisine can place a facility one step ahead in the competitive
senior housing market.
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