No more reheated meals
Retirement homes are notorious for serving bland, institutional food. Most of it comes from centralized, corporate centers which ship out truckloads of frozen meals, which are then reheated on site. The same services that provide food for hospitals and airplanes - two other places notorious for bad meals.
There are a lot of problems with feeding someone this way long-term. It's boring and not very tasty, for one thing. Like any heavily processed meal, they aren't very healthy. And they provide little in the way of variety. Finally, some retirement homes are finding that these meals also cost more than cooking food from scratch on-site.
NPR recently profiled several retirement homes which have seen the light, and converted to a full kitchen with a proper on-site staff and chef preparing meals. Food is fresh, local, varied, and delicious. The kitchen staff is also trained on making specialty foods for people with disabilities, like mini bite-size quiches and hash brown bites, for people with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease who have trouble using silverware.
Even better, the retirement homes are finding that not only are their clients happier with the better food, but they are saving money across the board. Talk about a win-win!