Icaa, Restaura To Launch Senior Living Dining Assessment Tool, New Standards For Operators

The International Council on Active Aging (ICAA) and newly launched hospitality and dining services company Restaura are rolling out a new way for senior living operators to benchmark the quality of their dining.

The companies on Wednesday announced they are launching an effort dubbed the “Culinary and Hospitality Benchmarking System” to help operators understand how well they are doing in five areas: Culinary excellence and food quality, wellness, hospitality, transparency and trust, and outside engagement. The effort includes a self-assessment tool launching this month on the ICAA website and supported by CrossCheck, a company that handles quality assurance assessment for food and hospitality operations.

Communities will be eligible for Bronze, Gold and Platinum levels with the ICAA Plate of Distinction if they choose to seek formal recognition. CrossCheck will provide on-site evaluations in order to validate a community’s performance, and certified communities will receive the ICAA Culinary Excellence Plate of Distinction seal.

The idea is to create new standards for excellence in dining similar to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification in architecture and community design.

Before launching the new efforts,ICAA surveyed around 500 senior living organizations and 1,500 older adults to see if there was a disconnect between what residents want compared to what operators actually serve.

“There was a much more negative perception from the consumer than there was, of course, those working within the industry,” Milner told Senior Housing News. “Our goal over the last few years has been to try and close that gap.”

The culinary-focused effort follows the launch of a similar assessment tool for wellness, which ICAA unveiled in 2022. Around 500 organizations currently use the program, according to Milner.

“71% of communities, based on our survey, expect to be a wellness based community with care by 2030. It has taken over 30 years of social change to get us here,” Milner said. “And I think social change in regards to food and the dining experience has also evolved … ​​we’re hoping that this will help move that movement forward further.”

Matthew Thompson, Restaura chief culinary officer, said 69% of resident respondents noted dining plays a significant role in their decision to move to a senior living community, and only 17% of those prospective residents believe that their dining community can actually deliver on the promises they make in dining.

Once the system has been rolled out, Milner said immediate next steps will be to get operators to begin using it to find how they can begin making adjustments in their dining programming. The hope is to provide tools and resources for operators to find opportunities for improvement, according to Thompson.

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