Two years ago, every senior living dining program in the country pivoted in accordance with the pandemic — and in 2022 many of the same challenges still apply.
Staffing pressures and some lingering restrictions on in-person dining have made keeping residents nourished and happy more challenging than arguably ever before. At the same time, many operators have reported residents are burned out after more than two years of alternating between eating in their rooms or in scaled-down communal settings.
In response, some forward-thinking operators including Watermark Retirement Communities, Aegis Living and life plan community Wake Robin have increasingly turned their focus to keeping their dining programs flexible enough to weather any sudden changes, while also promoting wellness to keep residents engaged.
The changes have included new approaches to how residents pay for meals, which at Watermark is transforming dining from a cost center to a profit center. However, supply chain disruptions and inflation are pressuring providers, even as consumer expectations are rising. And operators and residents are still coping with the effects of Covid-19.
“The psychosocial impacts of Covid were significant,” Aegis Living Enterprise Culinary Service Director Ashleigh Pedersen said during a recent Senior Housing News webinar. “Getting residents comfortable with coming back to the dining room — with talking to their fellow residents, with engaging with family members and guests that are in the community — has been critical.”
Wellness and engagement
Wellness has become a larger focus of senior living operators in recent years, particularly in their dining programs. While the pandemic has made keeping residents well more important, it has also made doing so harder.
As operators shifted their culinary programs in response to Covid, they also changed the way they fostered wellness among residents. For instance, although comfort food remains…
