It’s important that we look after our senior citizens.
Nutrition becomes more and more important as you get older. Putting healthy and delicious food in your body is good for people of any age, but when you’re a senior, it’s paramount. The problem is that, for seniors, it becomes tough to get out and buy healthy food to cook for yourself.
Even in assisted living homes, the meals aren’t always nutritious. When you’re cooking for several dozen seniors, it’s often more expensive and difficult to create healthy meals. That’s why we’re here to talk about senior meal delivery.
Specialized food delivery vehicles could be the answer to the problem of healthy meals for our seniors—those in or out of assisted living homes. If you’re a chef or a restauranteur who wants to be more involved with their community by helping those in need, a food delivery vehicle could be the answer.
What Makes Senior Meal Delivery Services Important?
Many seniors simply don’t have the means to get nutritious food for themselves. With a food delivery vehicle, meals can easily be delivered to seniors in assisted living communities, or even those living out on their own.
There’s an epidemic of malnourishment in America’s elderly community, with an estimated 50% of seniors in long-term care facilities considered malnourished.
Malnourishment can lead to serious health problems to which the elderly are more susceptible because of their age. We can’t ignore this problem, but taking a large scale approach won’t work. We have to tackle this on a community by community basis.
If you’re running a charity or are a charitable restauranteur, senior meal delivery can be your path to helping out those that need it most. Let’s take a look at the different ways that you can use a food delivery vehicle to make a difference.
Food Trucks
Food trucks are all the rage in most parts of America. Many entrepreneurs are foregoing the traditional brick and mortar restaurant for these mobile counterparts.
If you’re a food truck owner, you can use your facilities to deliver meals to assisted living communities. Give them great food that they can be happy with, even if it’s just once or twice a month.
Charities & Prepared Meal Delivery
For those interested in looking after the elderly community, you should consider purchasing a temperature-controlled vehicle to bring good, home-cooked food to them. There are more and more non-profits that employ amazing chefs to make nutritious food for those in need.
A professional delivery vehicle that is equipped to handle food would allow you to bring these meals to individual houses and assisted living centers so that they don’t have to worry about making or eating food that isn’t beneficial to them.
Meals on Wheels
Meals on wheels programs are currently providing food to millions of seniors who are obese, malnourished, or living in poverty. If there are no meals on wheels programs in your community, you may consider starting one.
Not only will you help curtail the problems of obesity and food insecurity in our seniors, but you’ll give them a sense of connection with their community. So many seniors feel the solitude of being forgotten about.
Grocery Delivery
Many seniors do still feel comfortable cooking but don’t have the means to go out and get groceries. A grocery delivery service is one more way you can help out the elderly.
A temperature-controlled van allows you to hold groceries for many customers at a time. This way, you can do one large pickup and then deliver everything at once.
Benefits of Senior Meal Delivery Vehicles
There are countless benefits to senior meal delivery that we’ve touched upon. The most important thing is that the seniors are eating food that’s actually good for them. We’ll talk about specific meal plans shortly, but first, let’s discuss how different meal delivery vehicles can help you get the food to the people.
What a Real Insulated Vehicle Can Give You
Delivering meals and groceries in a normal van or car is possible, but there’s so much more that a converted vehicle can do. Things like temperature-control, multi-temp compartments, shelving, and organizational systems allow you to take the reins of your food delivery capabilities.
At Delivery Concepts, we offer various inserts and conversions for whatever type of food delivery you need to handle. We work with you to create the best food delivery system for your needs.
How to Choose Your Vehicle
It can be hard to figure out the logistics of starting a food delivery service, but starting out with these questions will give you a good basis for where to go.
- What are the gaps in the senior food delivery market in your area?
- What kind of service are you going to offer? Meals on wheels? Grocery delivery? Or diet-specific food preparation?What kind of temperature-controlled vehicle do you need to offer the services your community needs?
- Answering these questions will help you determine the size of vehicle you need, and whether you need heated or cooled compartments (or both!).
Answering these questions will help you determine the size of vehicle you need, and whether you need heated or cooled compartments (or both!).
Specific Dietary Food Delivery
One of the most important things to consider when delivering food to the elderly is what dietary restrictions they might have. The whole point of providing this service is to provide a healthier culinary experience than what they or their facility can provide on their own.
Meal delivery for seniors is different than normal meal delivery because the meals often have to be made specifically for individuals rather than making a large batch of an individual meal.
You might need to provide gluten-free, vegetarian, low-sodium, high-fiber, or dairy-free meals, to name just a few. This means you need a vehicle that can handle the size and organizations of these different options.
Get Cookin’
Maybe it’s time to make a difference in the community. Don’t let obesity, malnourishment, and neglect in the elderly be a part of yours. Get involved in senior meal delivery. You will see how much delicious and nutritious food can make a difference to those who are often isolated from society.
To find your ideal food delivery vehicle, contact us. We offer a wide range of food delivery conversions to fit your every need.
Looking for other helpful articles? Come back and visit our blog to read more about food delivery and food trucks.