Food Quality Issues- Taste

Taste Is Important!- Mississippi

Senior living communities are challenged with maintaining resident satisfaction for dining. In this survey, the community failed to follow recipes, specifically failed to season the resident’s food. At face value this does not seem like a significant concern. However, lack of flavor/taste can lead to resident complaints, which could lead to decreased oral intakes which in turn leads to weight loss. After receiving several complaints from residents, the surveyors requested a test tray. Upon receiving the test tray, the surveyors noticed that most of the food was not seasoned and in fact was bland. The community was cited with F804, which is Nutritive Value/Appear Palatable/Preferred Temperature.

How can this be avoided? Work with your consulting dietitian to implement an effective quality assurance (QA) program that proactively identifies these concerns. Crandall utilizes an in-house developed meal inspection form that helps to identify areas of concern.  The QA is completed on at least 3 meals per month and the frequency may need to be increased if additional concerns are identified. The most important thing is that the community identified and then corrects food quality issues.

See how hiring a Crandall Consultant can connect you to an entire support team.

Remember that residents, just like us, want to enjoy their food. If we were to go to a restaurant and the food we received was not seasoned, we would probably not want to go to that restaurant again. Same goes for residents but their choices are limited. We need to make every effort to exceed the residents’ expectations with excellent food!