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Haleth's avatar

What's the best way to make a menu for the elderly?

Asked by Haleth (18947points) September 9th, 2010

There’s an assisted living home two blocks from my job. We have a long-time regular customer who calls to order food that isn’t available at the home, mostly sweets and gourmet items. We deliver it every Thursday afternoon. We don’t normally deliver (not enough staff for regular deliveries), but she’s such a great customer and always orders at the same time, so we’re glad to do it.

So I’m thinking, a lot of the other residents would probably like to do this if they knew about it, and it would be a great source of business. There aren’t really any grocery stores or anything nearby.

I was thinking of calling to find out who is in charge of meals or activities and working with them to develop a simple menu and delivery schedule. We would have to deliver at a set time because we only have two or three people working at any given time, so we’d need to plan ahead for it, but we already do this all the time for the one customer.

Relevant info: Assisted living means the residents need help with a few daily activities but not around-the-clock nursing assistance. For example, our customer walks with a cane and prefers to keep to the building, but visits with other people who live there. I don’t know if the residents have their own kitchens- need to find out.

My store sells sandwiches, salads, pastries, candy, and a few grocery things like fruit, yogurt, charcuterie, and cheese. Our most popular items with the elderly seem to be soup, french baguettes, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, gingerbread, and yogurt. Of course I’d be glad to deliver anything we have in the store, but I want to make a list of our most popular items for residents who can’t get out here.

I’m definitely open to any ideas and input! This idea is still in the brainstorming stage.

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