Category: Food Service

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Webinar: How COVID-19 is Changing Healthcare Foodservice in 2020

Restaurants and Hospitals were among the major foodservice providers who changed their MOs and SOPs virtually overnight. This impacted food safety practices for them, their employees, clients and customers, and things may never be the same.

Objectives:
•Identify the huge operational shifts created for essential foodservice operators who must continue to operate during a pandemic and for the restaurants trying their best to do so
•Identify the food safety challenges created by this public health crisis and the strategies to address them.
•Summarize the lessons learned and forecasting future ones that will alter every step of the feeding process from supplier to operator to server to customer.

Presenter: Mary Angela Miller MS RDN, LD, President, KeepSafe Food, LLC
Moderated by: Marsha Diamond, MA, RDN, President, Diamond Approach

Sponsored by AHF-NJ, Alluserv and Lakeside Foodservice.

PDF of Presentation

DOWNLOAD PDF OF PRESENTATION HERE

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A Step-by-Step Look at Senior Care In-Room Meal Delivery

From prep to presentation, take a quick look at meal delivery with the SuzyQ

As we continue to navigate the world of COVID-19, we’re seeing changes in the ways foodservice is delivered. Nowhere is this more important than in senior care and longterm care communities.

As we’ve all seen, older populations are the most vulnerable demographic, and new regulations have been devised to help protect them. One of the most important is to move dining service from dining rooms and common spaces, opting instead for personal, in-room delivery. Continue reading A Step-by-Step Look at Senior Care In-Room Meal Delivery

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How Senior Care Dining Impacts Mental Health

In healthcare, mealtimes can be some of the most anticipated and enjoyable times of the day.

There’s no doubting the fact people love food. We love the way it tastes, the way it feels in our mouth, the way it nourishes us. We love the socialization that usually comes with food. Dining is an experience. And most important, it’s good for our mental health.

Nowhere is this more true than in our senior care and long term care communities. According to one study on senior care and foodservice, “mealtimes are a mainstay of life through which residents’ experiences are characterized, exemplified, and magnified. In the study, the three themes that impact a resident’s experience were emotional and psychological connections with other residents, managing competing interests with limited resources, and familiarity and routine.

Food and meals touch on all three.

1) Food brings residents together. Though traditionally in communal dining areas, meals are enjoyed together and provide opportunities for conversation and socialization.

2) Food provides a sense of control. When residents have meal choice, when they can literally decide what goes on their plate and what doesn’t, it provides an element of control that can often be hard to come by for residents in long term communities.

3) Food provides routine. For many in long term communities, mealtimes provide needed stabilization in terms of day-to-day routines. When you know you’re going to eat lunch every day at 11:30, it provides welcome familiarity

Senior Care Foodservice in the Age of COVID

Today, of course, we’re living in an entirely different world. The processes by which food is served in these types of communities have been turned upside down, and foodservice directors are doing whatever they can to help residents still achieve the three points above, the points that are so critical to the mental health and well-being of our seniors living in these communities.

The reality is, communal dining has pretty much been taken away from us due to the potential exposure created by the Coronavirus. Operations across the country are moving to models where food is ordered and delivered directly to residents’ rooms.

In terms of socialization, foodservice staff need to be creative. They need to understand the personal delivery of food in a resident’s room is still the highlight of the day in many cases, but now that highlight comes without the ability to dine with friends. Those brief interactions when food is delivered become critical for the well being of residents.

Choice is still choice. In some ways, the concept of calling in an order and receiving it delivered can be kind of fun for residents. Play up that angle. When residents are restricted from the dining room, creative room service can be a fun way to provide some joy.

And, lastly, food is still part of the routine. Though that routine may be a bit different, it still provides consistency in someone’s day, allowing them to feel reassurance that what someone is used to will continue.

Just because COVID-19 has changed senior care foodservice doesn’t mean everything is changed for the worse.

Discover the basics of this new era of senior care foodservice by learning more from our resident senior care expert. From new and creative ways to deliver food, as well as the systems that need to be in place to accomplish it, watch on-demand, or download, our webinar “Customer Confidence in Food Safety“.

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The State of Healthcare Foodservice

Hospitals in the United States see as many as 36.4 million admissions every year. And for patients and families who spend more than a just few hours in a hospital, chances are they will end up eating at least one meal courtesy of a hospital foodservice operator. In fact, those foodservice operations generate a significant amount of income for a hospital.

Read More

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Umami – The 5th Flavor

Umami Saves The Taste (Buds): Elevating Food Flavor

Imagine you’re out to eat, about to be served. You know the food is ready when you smell the aroma from a few feet away. When it arrives to the table, your mouth begins to water at the sight of the dish you’ve been looking forward to. You take a bite, but it tastes bland. This can be rather disappointing if you have been anticipating a delicious meal. This is your senses at work. We use senses such as sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste to make judgments about the food we eat. We eat with our eyes first, smell second and taste last. Taste is the most influential in determining our enjoyment of a food. You might be familiar with the basic tastes like sweet, sour, salty and bitter, but we have an additional taste, also known as Umami.

Umami is a savory taste imparted by glutamate, found in dishes like meat, fish, vegetables and dairy products. The goal of Umami is to bring out the natural flavors in food and ultimately, enhance the flavoring of the food. Increasing the use of Umami in dishes could:

  1. Introduce new ingredients to food – The primary role of Umami is to make food more flavorful, but it also changes how our dishes are prepared. Umami can be used on its own or in conjunction with other flavors and foods, which opens up new ideas on traditional recipes.
  2. Increase food acceptability and consumption – When a food tastes good, we normally want to eat more of it. This is especially important when trying to increase intake of foods like fruits and vegetables. Umami can influence the perceptions of these foods in dishes and increase their overall acceptance on the plate.
  3. Reduce food waste – On the contrary, we naturally leave more food on the plate when we don’t like it. This can add to the pile of food wasted on a daily basis. Umami has the potential to reduce food waste by increasing the desirability of the dish. 
  4. Enhance overall customer experience – One of the most common objectives of a foodservice operation is to give the customer the best experience possible. If the food tastes good, there is higher customer satisfaction. This increases the chances might even recommend and rave about the food!

Try a simple taste test with your team. Add Umami to a portion of soup and one without. We have experienced this test and the difference was significant as adding Umami gave the broth a savory feel, without interfering with the texture or the presentation of it. Umami’s usage can have a huge impact on how your patients and customers enjoy their food. You may be surprised on the impact on the enjoyment of future dining experiences too, especially in those who have compromised or diminished taste buds due to illnesses or aging. Umami can give these populations better eating and tasting experiences thus, better consumption and nutrition.

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Sleep Can Affect the Workplace

“Sleep is for the weak” is a phrase commonly used to influence people to stay awake for longer hours, but have we considered the toll that a lack of sleep can take on health? At this year’s food nutrition conference and expo, there was session titled, Best of the Rest, that proposed sleep being a piece of the health puzzle with food choices and exercise too, presented by Dr. Michael Grandner.

Sleep is a biological process that starts with our sleep drive and our biological clock.  In this process, our body recovers and repairs from the day. So, what are the consequences of a lack of sleep?

Nutritionally, a lack of sleep can impair the immune system, putting us at a higher risk of getting sick. Also, those who aren’t getting enough sleep tend to gain weight and have higher susceptibility to chronic health conditions like obesity and hypertension. Not only are there health consequences (higher disability and insurance costs), but exhausted employees can have just as much of a negative impact on the workplace environment (productivity levels, falls, mistakes)

A lack of sleep increases our sleep drive, meaning, we feel more tired as we go about our day. Our brain is constantly sending signals to the body that we need rest. This is why we have a harder time concentrating when we are tired. Inadequate sleep makes it difficult to make complex decisions, resulting in a lack of effective communication amongst team members. This can hinder productivity levels and set the tone of their environment daily. Currently, over 30% of people don’t get good sleep.

 Steps that can be taken to ensure you and your team members get your z’s?

  1. Your work environments-consider the design of Zen gardens and rest venues. Napping boosts alertness and accuracy.  Nappers are more alert, respond faster and better, and make fewer mistakes. Even a 20-minute nap was found to improve alertness and performance among shift workers.
  2. Replicate these type of design for employees –Recharge rooms, nap pods.
  3. Inservice training included with orientations, etc. to educate what can tips to  get a better-quality sleep.
  4. picking an optimal time and amount of sleep. The recommended amount of sleep is 7-9 hours for adults.
  5. Minimize any light exposure during sleep can also disturb the sleep cycle.
  6. Avoid smart devices or tv screens before going to sleep
  7. Minimize or avoid smoking and alcohol several hours before your bedtime

Keep in mind that these recommendations go hand in hand with a healthy lifestyle, food options and exercise. Promoting lifestyle practices in the workplace can have plenty of benefits including: reduced health care costs, increased concentration for effective decision making and overall, higher workplace productivity.

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Patients Eat With Their Eyes First

How a food looks tell the patient a lot about the food and the foodservice team accountability and experience. People use the way a food looks to judge the food for freshness and quality. When the food is visually appealing to a patient, you accomplish your mission of providing nourishment for the recovery and healing of your patients.

COLOR, SHAPE, SIZE AND POSITION OF FOOD MATTERS IN VISUAL APPEAL

COLOR: The most impactful eye appeal

  • Break up the colors
  • Enhance the colors
  • Make it “glisten”
  • Keep the colors natural

SHAPE: Ingredients

  • Vary the cuts of ingredients
  • Add textures to the dish

STYLE: Arranging ingredients, plating

  • Traditional – The Y style of plating
  • Modern plating
  • Simplicity

Aroma Strategies:

  • Include variety
  • Add flavor to comfort food
  • Herbs add color, taste and smell
  • Cooking techniques can enhance aroma and experience
  • Be aware of visual placement on the tray, temperature awareness, less is more, easy to handle and maneuver on tray space

For more on this topic, click here to watch Alluserv's last webinar!

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Milliseconds and Millimeters Matter

Ergonomics is an applied science concerned with designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely — also called biotechnology, human engineering, or human factors. Ergonomics affects all ages, all professions and all aspects of daily living.

Human Factors

Consider these conditions/requirements when evaluating equipment:

The goal is to monitor all work activities that permit the worker to adopt several different, but equally healthy and safe postures. Identify where muscular force has to be exerted, localize it to the largest appropriate muscle groups available. Where motion is performed, target the joints at about mid-point of their range of movement, particularly for the head, trunk, and upper limbs.

Lost or Found $$$

When making a decision to select equipment, one key objective is; get most done in the shortest amount of time in the most efficient manner. There are many nuances that may attribute to a lower price for a piece of equipment however, these attributes may in fact result in a higher Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Will this specific product increase or decrease:

  • Productivity
  • FTE’s
  • Injuries/Call Offs
  • Errors/Mistakes
  • Cleaning Times
  • Maintenance

If any result in an increase, “Houston, we may have a problem.”

Time is money! Distance is time!

If the equipment happens to be “X” millimeters wider/longer/taller/shorter, and, this results in an increase or decrease by “Y” milliseconds to complete a task, what is that cost or gain to the operation?

Although a few mm or ms may appear insignificant initially, an increase, positive or negative, by example, reduce or add 400 milliseconds to complete a task (the time it takes to blink), repeated say, 1,000 times per meal period, that’s 400k milliseconds for the meal period, about 6.7 minutes. 6.7 minutes, no big deal, right? Then, multiply this by three meal periods and that’s 20 minutes per day. Still not a lot of time but you could get quite a bit done with 20 minutes of “found time” each day.

Let’s take this example a bit further. 20 minutes a day translates to 7,300 minutes per year, 122 hours. Over a seven year life-span for the piece of equipment, that totals 850 hours +/-. If the average wage is $15/hr, that’s $12,750. You can add or subtract this from your TCO to help make your decision.

Considering this one example, multiplied by each work station, for multiple tasks per station, and suddenly, you have good reason to look very closely into the ergonomic impact of every piece of equipment.

Use these findings to reduce FTE’s or repurpose work assignments. Either way, you have a “win.”

By The Way

Also, imagine if you could reduce one call-off per year per FTE due to reduction in back injuries, that’s another 56 hours added to your bottom line.

How about one less “call back tray or courtesy tray” per meal period? … that’s $15/day, $450/month, $5,475/year in direct cost savings.

Help

There are solutions, the Alexander Technique, a training program to help individuals to better understand how their bodies react to work/stress and how to avoid habits that negatively impact their well-being.

The right meal assembly set up can reduce minutes and increase time to get meals to patients. Modifiable equipment that works with your people. No one size fits all. Alluserv’s is ready to help! Modifiable tray starter stations, heights and widths for meal delivery carts, tray lines, etc…

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Parsley, Carrot Curls, Radish Flowers, Oh My!

A garnish is an item or substance used as a decoration or embellishment accompanying a prepared food dish or drink. In many cases, it may give added or contrasting flavor or texture. Some garnishes are selected mainly to augment the visual impact of the plate, while others are selected specifically for the flavor they may impart This is in contrast to a condiment, a prepared sauce added to another food item primarily for its flavor. A food item which is served with garnish may be described as being Garni, the French term for ‘garnished.’ Many garnishes in the past were not intended to be eaten but today is a different culinary playground.

I went to some of the foodservice culinarian leaders and asked them these questions:

  1. Can the food be the garnish?
  2. Or are traditional garnishes still mode of operation?
  3. What does a garnish do for the experience?

Here are their insights:

“In my opinion food should be the garnish in its own edible form. The old form of garnishes are out of trend. You might say, Elvis Parsley is no longer king or has left the restaurant! I prefer to see the plate like an artist palate. For example, a beet carpaccio with fanned out sliced beets with a dollop of goat cheese is eye catching and makes the food more appealing. Customers eat with their eyes and this is precisely why you see so many customers taking food selfies. The top restaurateurs understand “the art of food is from their palate to your palate.”

“Food garnishes in their traditional forms are edible, however does a person dining actually eat a piece of parsley on a prepared dish? Not to say that they can’t but most don’t eat the garnish as it hasn’t been appealing or appetizing. If the garnish becomes part of the dish and is the right component of the dish it can enhance the flavor or texture profile when consumed with the dish. For example, I make a braised boneless beef short ribs sliders with garnish of caramelized onions. It can be actually the best dining experiences are when the garnish becomes part of the embellishment of a dish to enhance the customers palate.”

An herb’s blossom tastes like the herb itself. So, thyme blossoms are subtly thyme-flavored; arugula blossoms taste like arugula, with a hint of honeysuckle. In season, look for blossoming herbs at the farmers’ market — or in the vegetable garden. Notice how an ordinary bunch of rosemary or sage is flecked with delicate, perfumed flowers.

Of course, there are other beautiful edible flowers to consider, like calendula and nasturtium and borage and marigold, ready to sprinkle, like fairy dust, as a garnish, or to make your food even more colorful.

Today’s culinary playground is fierce as foodservice venues and chefs try to compete with each other for dining clients and loyalty.

Variety and purpose of garnishes are being reimagined. It needs to become an important component of sustainability as in the past, the garnish in a traditional sense was added as eye appeal then discarded by the customer and not consumed. Waste!! However, if a chef creates a garnish that can be consumed and enhances the customer dining experience, the garnish becomes that add flavor or texture that separates recipes from competitors’ recipes. See pictures slideshow of other ideas to incorporate into your flavor, taste and sight experience. Use your imagination and reach beyond. We eat with our eyes and if it looks and tastes better we can get better nutrition too!

Written by Marsha Diamond, MA, RDN

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Top 10 Reasons Your Facility Should Be Gluten/Allergen Free

10. Raise Awareness – Heightened awareness is critical to the welfare of this population so that they can be served safely by knowledgeable staff and facilities.  We are very passionate about this cause and try to spread the word as much as possible.

9. Fulfill the Need – As demonstrated by the trends and facts, this topic requires greater awareness to meet the needs of the patients, residents and patrons.

8. Ease Your Worries – Putting a formal program into your facility will ease your worries that people can dine safely and have their needs met.  No one wants to see people get sick.

7.  Take Pride – This is a wonderful opportunity to provide a work environment that is topnotch and demonstrates caring and that you have taken the extra step to do the right thing!

6. Instill Confidence – The most important aspect of providing a formal program is that you will instill confidence with the patients, residents and patrons that you know what you are doing and that they should not fear that they will get sick.  In addition, the staff will have a renewed sense of confidence as they have been given the knowledge to do the right thing.

5.  Pro-Active – Be the first and become a role model.

4. Regulatory Compliance – From the start, develop the program so that it will be compliant with the FDA Labeling Laws and other regulatory body standards – federal, state, local, Joint Commission.

3. Well Educated Staff – Knowledge is power which will increase confidence in the patients, residents and patrons, and your staff.  This new program needs to be comprehensive so that it covers all facets including clinical and practical aspects.

2. Change Agent– Start a movement and be a best practice facility for your peers to look up to.  It will be great publicity for your institution

1.  Patient/Patron Safety and Satisfaction!!!!! – Ultimate Goal which can be accomplished with the implementation of a formal gluten/allergen-free food service program following the guidelines presented today.