Belinda Adams, chief executive and founder of care catering software provider SoupedUp, explores the challenge for care home providers of managing clinical dietary requirements, allergies, dislikes, preferences, and cultural needs.
It is widely recognised that care home caterers are faced with four major stress factors – time, budget constraints, complexity of diets, and the shortage of skilled labour.
With regards to meal preparation and services, there is simply not enough time and what little there is, is spent meeting three very tight mealtime deadlines every day. Residents punctuate their whole day by mealtimes, so the stress to deliver these on time can be overwhelming.
With the continuous rise of choice, the demand for quality has increased too. This invariably affects the budget as everyone wants fresh produce which costs more to source. Then there is the complexity of special diets - of which there are many - and the shortage of skilled labour that has been squeezed further by the increase in wage costs.
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