Our Thoughts

How Chefs At Retirement Homes Will Benefit From Using Technology

Posted on July 19, 2022 by Continyou Care

Without your chefs, your kitchen isn’t going to do the most important thing – create delicious and nutritious meals for your residents in what should be a memorable culinary experience. The Continyou Care solution isn’t just designed to make the lives of dining staff easier, it’s also designed with chefs in mind. In this article, we look at the different ways the Continyou Care app can help your chefs.

Orders Received One-By-One

Instead of overwhelming your chefs in a process where servers are handing them 10-20 orders at a time written on a piece of paper, the Continyou Care’s Tableside Meal Ordering module (which includes POS functionality) manages the pace so that it’s more reasonable for the kitchen staff. Every time an order is taken & sent to the kitchen right from the table by a server, a thermal receipt is sent to the printer(s) in the kitchen so orders can start getting prepped right away! 

Eliminates Errors

The traditional “paper-and-pen method” can create a situation in your dining room where the same dining staff member can write the same order three different ways for three different residents.  This means your chef may have to decipher multiple handwriting styles and multiple ways an order could be submitted which will increase the likelihood of errors being made with orders that will result in food wastage (as residents will not accept the meal).  

With the Continyou Care platform, we standardize the way orders (even with customizations & sides) are sent to the kitchen to eliminate this issue.  The receipt includes the Suite #, Resident Name, Order, Customizations, and Order time – so all the info needed for cooking and billing is available easily.  Since food wastage can get dramatically reduced, this means your home will save money, which is always a good thing! 

Cooking only what is needed

Continyou Care tracks data & provides useful reports so you can make informed decisions when it comes to future food orders. Knowing what residents tend to want helps you keep your chefs informed on what is required on any given day, what should be included on the menus for a particular home/community and ordering the right products to have in inventory from your supplier.

No Need for Show Plates

Creating show plates takes time & money (in the form of food) for the chef. Additionally, after show plates have been sitting out for awhile, they tend NOT to look appetizing which defeats their purpose.  With digtized show plates offered through the Continyou Care platform, your show plates will NEVER deteriorate because the meal in the photo will always look fresh & appetizing!  This will also result in a cost savings for the home because show plates will no longer need to be made, cutting down on food wastage.  

It’s not just chefs that the Continyou Care solution benefits when it comes to the dining operations, as management and dining staff see value too.  General managers can use the analytics & reports to make more data-driven decisions which will result in cost savings for their home when it comes to reducing food wastage significantly.   Dining staff can spend more time at the table engaging with residents as they know they are able to send orders easily to the kitchen while drastically reducing errors that could be made during the order-taking process.  

If any of these challenges sound familiar, please book a demo with a member of our team so we can discuss how we can help you improve your dining operations, create a better culinary experience for your residents and make life easier for both your chef & dining staff.