This text is sponsored by Strategic Eating Companies. This text is predicated on a dialogue with Kristin Thompson, senior vp of shopper excellence on the CCL Hospitality Group. This dialogue occurred on Could 17, 2024 throughout the SHN DISHED/Wellness Convention. The article under has been edited for size and readability.
Senior Housing Information: Strategic Eating Companies has a objective to supply self-operated neighborhood eating administration, culinary, and repair workers with beneficial assets, applied sciences, teaching, and hands-on assist to boost their expertise and management skills. This assist, coupled with the facility of the meals by GPO buying assets and end-to-end culinary administration ecosystem, drives effectivity, high quality, and develops eating leaders into the neighborhood.
Kristin, what are a number of the conversations that you simply’ve been having with senior dwelling suppliers and what are a number of the frequent enterprise challenges and alternatives that they’re dealing with proper now?
Kristin Thompson: In my function for CCL Hospitality Group, I cowl the entire nation and I’ve the nice pleasure to speak to the nation’s main senior dwelling operators, sometimes the C-suite, government administrators, and hospitality leaders. It’s attention-grabbing as a result of all of us thought COVID was in all probability the worst factor we’d ever undergo in our lives in senior dwelling, attempting to ensure folks stayed alive, flipping your entire meals service world in a single day, and normally every single day as CMS and the well being techniques got here out with new guidelines.
As I converse with shoppers, they usually say popping out of COVID has been even tougher. Most of my shoppers proper now are confronted with this attention-grabbing puzzle. There’s the puzzle of bills, notably nursing, rates of interest going up on their loans for properties, notably new properties and improvement. It’s an attention-grabbing puzzle of attempting to return to monetary viability in order that they will keep alive to serve the residents that all of us acquired on this enterprise to serve. Then the flip aspect is we’re all now lastly shifting our consideration once more to be fascinated by the resident of tomorrow, which is very enjoyable.
That’s the place the expertise is available in, the platforms, getting again to the actually enjoyable meals service world that all of us love. It’s a puzzle, although, to attempt to include bills, discover new income streams, so that they’re having to essentially handle in a really new method. But all of us in eating, we all know that eating is among the high two causes a resident chooses to maneuver right into a neighborhood. When you’re value slicing and discovering options to avoid wasting your online business, it’s additionally a time in senior dwelling the place you’ve acquired to be investing in large methods. How do you handle these two issues for a profitable end result?
I believe one of many issues of simply the evolving operational surroundings, as you talked about, is one thing that’s actually shaping how operators are fascinated by eating and nonetheless balancing the personalization and choice-driven choices for residents popping out of the pandemic as, such as you stated, get again to all the pieces that made culinary an attention-grabbing half.
The enjoyable stuff once more.
Precisely, sure. What sorts of assets do neighborhood leaders share with you that they want probably the most when in these conversations that you simply’ve had? What are a number of the issues that they really want to assist enhance their operational success?
Our shoppers and actually all the communities want good cost-effective options. We’d like to ensure we’re stewarding the resident’s funding and dwelling locally. I had a shopper say, “Kristin, for each single dime you spend, I would like you to think about it because the resident’s cash.” I assumed that was so stunning as a result of once we consider all the pieces that method and we consider folks typically in a set revenue, in a set selection set financially, we’ve acquired to be ensuring that each selection we make, stewards their money and time nicely.
Secondly, although, all of the enjoyable stuff once more. Fascinated with expertise, fascinated by prices and menu platforms, fascinated by our new tech partnership with MealSuite. We name it DineOS. With that, we’ve been capable of, and thru Strategic Eating Companies, provide that to shoppers. From starting to the very finish. That enables our shoppers to not need to buy a number of platforms and techniques.
You merely set up all of the items of the DineOS platform, which suit your explicit neighborhood. It’s excessive on customization, excessive on service. One other factor we talked about is coaching and improvement. Strategic Eating Companies, what we love about this staff’s platform, is they arrive alongside and customise all the pieces on your staff, your kitchen, and your resident.
We all know how vital customization is. It appears like that’s additionally translating to the operator surroundings as nicely. Do you wish to discuss simply a number of the positives that you simply’re seeing simply on the whole?
Sure, completely. Now, a number of it’s nonetheless in improvement. It’s very thrilling and new for us throughout all of our firms. With DineOS, it is going to take issues from recipes, substances, and seasonality. Strategic Eating notably focuses on very quick menu turns, bringing a number of seasonal and native substances in. You want a tech platform that may deal with that quantity of selection and alter. It will possibly’t be your apples every single day sort of recipes. What we do is we plug that into all the Compass Group assets, recipes, dietetics, all of our experience now fades into the platform.
Then the usual menu administration, stock, ordering, issues like that. Then it additionally seamlessly integrates into all the resident-facing platforms. Your tablets within the eating room, your app for ordering meals. We might not really feel that residents could also be tremendous nice at that, however I’ve been endlessly stunned at what our residents can do. Additionally, we simply demoed the MealSuite pre-ordering app for a shopper a pair weeks in the past who’re specializing in offering meals for his or her workers. The thought of, say, you’ve gotten a whole neighborhood that’s pretty unfold out.
Your workers maybe get a 30-minute lunch break. Have they got to stroll to your eating institution, place an order, anticipate 10 or quarter-hour? Now they’ve 7 minutes to eat and get again to take care of the residents. That’s not a really stress-free, refreshing time to refresh and go serve once more. The thought is may you order your lunch forward of time, which permits the kitchen to essentially seamlessly have it prepared for you by the point you come.
This creates a bonus for the hardworking workers all through the senior dwelling neighborhood with an excellent meal proper on time. It implies that the staff aren’t staying within the bistros consistent with the residents. It additionally creates a bonus for the resident with the ability to simply use their venues. It’s so cool to have a beginning-to-end platform after which to have the ability to plug in all of our assets from all through the corporate to benefit all of our shoppers. Significantly, I believe it is a very new program with depth for our strategic eating shoppers.
It sounds such as you’re making a platform that’s as nimble as operators need to be in right this moment’s working surroundings.
Precisely, since you customise each single piece of the way in which. If a neighborhood solely wants one slice of that and has some fantastic platforms that maybe encompass it that they’ve already invested in, not an issue. It’s extra about customizing, bringing our notably self-operated shoppers, partnership, and efficiency.
One of many different elements I wish to contact on right here is coaching and improvement as a result of we all know that primarily for a eating staff and sadly a number of the turnover points that we see, particularly on the eating and culinary aspect, it’s a endless problem of with the ability to have the precise coaching in place and the precise profession improvement in place on your workers, which feeds into retention as nicely. What’s your perspective on what works on the subject of coaching and improvement?
I may need a novel perspective as a result of in a few of my previous careers, I’ve really run gross sales coaching and operations coaching and issues like that. Meals is one in all my greatest passions aside from coaching. It’s about enabling folks to be wonderful of their work as a result of all of us have had these days the place we’re like, I did one of the best job ever right this moment. I served nicely, I discovered, I beloved what I used to be doing. Coaching and improvement to me ought to obtain that for every one in all our workers.
Together with that, what we discover fairly often is it requires a extremely personalized method once more. Everybody has TikTok movies, coaching on-line, AI platforms, and all that’s nice, however including somebody to go shoulder to shoulder with you utterly modifications the world for somebody.
I remembered once I was a first-time supervisor popping out of lodge restaurant college, I noticed fairly shortly inside the first week, I need to not have discovered something in any respect in faculty as a result of I positive didn’t know what to do every single day operating this small restaurant that the corporate had given me. I used to typically cry on the bus going into the town to work and normally go to sleep on the bus going residence, I used to be so drained. I had a supervisor in that very same metropolis undertake me and take me beneath his wing.
I might name him nearly every single day and he would simply coach me by means of issues. He wasn’t my supervisor, he was really a pal from the identical college only a couple years older than me. I keep in mind that we talked every single day that first 12 months. What I really like about Strategic Eating Companies is we’ve got people like that. It’s like the last word phone-a-friend sort of partnership the place once you’re in a standalone neighborhood, it’s possible you’ll be the primary chief of meals service. Your government director, your hospitality staff, they might not have any type of culinary background.
Strategic Eating Companies comes alongside and does the coaching and improvement for the administration, your entire kitchen, the wait workers, wherever it’s applicable, wherever every neighborhood, once more, customizes the necessity. In addition they sit down with the chief director, the chief on web site of your entire neighborhood, who actually bears final accountability for what all of us put out every single day.
They sit with each of these events and say, listed here are the priorities for the subsequent month, listed here are all of the instruments that I’ve introduced and educated for my go to, and right here’s precisely what try to be in search of and inspecting and anticipating to see if the efficiency is going on and going nicely. We take it bite-by-bite, step-by-step, and actually construct alongside the culinary staff within the kitchen, but in addition with the management for the entire neighborhood.
It appears like there’s a number of assist alongside the way in which by means of that whole ecosystem, which is basically nice to listen to.
Completely, as a result of there could also be different folks crying on their drive to work.
Precisely. We don’t need that. Particularly in our culinary groups. If you’re fascinated by, I do know you touched on a number of the operational impacts that the DineOS system has had for some operators, simply with the rollout, do you wish to discuss a number of the different instant impacts and a number of the long-term advantages as an operator actually thinks about strengthening their techniques together with your platform?
Sure, positively. There’s customary tech platforms and the approaching alongside, however a pair issues we’ve additionally been capable of carry to our shoppers with strategic eating is a whole buying platform. You talked about Foodbuy, that’s the nation’s largest GPO. We’re ready now with the mixing of Compass supporting SDS, to essentially carry all the facility of the most important GPO within the nation. With that, and we additionally carry STISM requirements and so forth, we’re sometimes capable of pretty shortly carry our shoppers’ financial savings and bills 3% to five%. That will not look like an enormous quantity, however I simply final week acquired the most recent inflation experiences, and so they’re nonetheless at 4%.
Thank God they’re not at 10% and 12% like they had been a 12 months or two in the past. 4, however 4% remains to be some huge cash. We are able to’t permit the inflation of our prices in operating eating, or actually any inflation locally, to outpace what our residents pays. They’ve a reasonably set revenue degree. I believe the audio system proper earlier than me talked about we’re not a restaurant, we will’t take issues up 15%, 20%, 40% when we have to. Issues are pretty constrained in senior dwelling. Wherever we will carry effectivity techniques after which the coaching to essentially use them nicely, we will carry full circle assist.
For a frontrunner with many communities unfold over a big geographic space, what’s some recommendation you’d share simply in fascinated by the right way to greatest handle a large space?
What we’re discovering proper now within the business is an increasing number of communities are needing to affiliate. Both by means of affiliation or full purchases, you’re seeing techniques develop in locations that maybe techniques didn’t used to develop. Then you’ve gotten techniques who’ve actually meaningfully constructed an incredible system collectively. What we see in techniques is that they’re discovering a number of nice worth for them by means of strategic eating. Locations like Tutera, Ohio Residing, 5 Star.
What we’re unable to carry by bringing techniques and training to each neighborhood, then we’re capable of pull all the information and be capable of give the senior executives in a system new information to make selections. A pair weeks in the past I used to be engaged on a undertaking and I used to be like, give me the information, how a lot use is going on, which areas of the nation are performing nicely or maybe underperforming on the expectations.
I sat in on a evaluation of the enterprise with our senior shoppers at 5 Star and we had been capable of present district by district the place issues had been going nicely, the place issues wanted to enhance, which of the 15 measurables that we agree on with them are thriving and actually being accepted by groups, which of them are struggled. That lets us assist the leaders of a system, give them information techniques and processes so that everybody could make sensible selections in order that the system actually thrives since you’re serving a whole lot if not hundreds of older adults in these techniques. You might have scale and we wish to be certain that we do scale exceptionally nicely.
That scaling we all know can include some complications.
It’s arduous as a result of oftentimes the senior culinary chief has come up by means of the system, by means of the kitchens, however I do know once I first did a job that went from me operating my very own restaurant and kitchen to attempting to oversee 20, that could be a large profession leap. We acknowledge that I believe all through the enterprise in all of our profession paths that’s occurred, however how are you going to carry system and assist to assist with that? That’s actually the place we discover an excellent resolution with SDS.
CCL Hospitality Group leads in culinary and assist companies nationwide, with Morrison Residing, Unidine, Coreworks, and The Hub. They provide world-class hospitality infrastructure, expertise, and innovation, shaping future leaders with a service tradition targeted on neighborhood dwelling excellence. To study extra, go to: https://www.ccl-hg.com/.
