Taste, choice and timing: Investigating resident and carer preferences for meals in aged care homes

Abstract

There has been little empirical investigation of the preferences of people living in aged care homes for food services. The aim of the present study was to elicit consumer preferences and their willingness to pay for food service in aged care homes. Current residents or their family members were invited to take part in the discrete choice experiment questionnaire administered via interview. Of the 109 eligible residents and 175 eligible family members approached for consent 121 (43%) participated, including 43 residents. Participant preferences were influenced by food taste, choice in relation to serving size, timing of meal selection, visual appeal, and additional cost. Participants indicated they would be willing to pay an additional $24 (US$18.42) per week for food which tasted excellent and $8 (US$6.14) per week to have choice in serving sizes. The study found that respondents were willing to pay a premium to receive food that met their expectations of taste, and for a high level of control over serving sizes, which has implications for the funding and provision of food and dining in long-term care in the future. K E Y W O R D Sconsumer, discrete choice experiment, food service, informal carer, long-term care, service design

Facilitators and barriers to optimizing eating performance among cognitively impaired older adults: A qualitative study of nursing assistants’ perspectives

“…This study identified multiple environmental barriers that are consistent with previous reports, suggesting that an unsupportive dinning environment negatively impacts mealtime care in residential care settings (Chaudhury, Hung, & Badger, 2013). Multiple complaints from staff in relation to the dining environment, including overstimulation and poorly tasting food were discussed previously (Milte, Ratcliffe, Chen, Miller, & Crotty, 2018). Varied environmental modifications that manipulate meal appearance and quality, physical environment elements, and dining routines have been tested and demonstrate inconsistent evidence in improving eating performance and intake (Abbott et al., 2013; Bunn et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2014; Poscia et al., 2018).…”

Ranking of meal preferences and interactions with demographic characteristics: a discrete choice experiment in young adults

“…While DCEs have been predominantly used in health economics for primary care treatment [12][13][14][15], their potential for use within the context of nutrition research is becoming increasingly recognised [9,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. DCEs offer an opportunity to identify the most important influences on meal-based eating decisions that should be targeted to improve dietary interventions and policies in young adults.…”

“…DCEs offer an opportunity to identify the most important influences on meal-based eating decisions that should be targeted to improve dietary interventions and policies in young adults. However, DCE research on meal choices to date has focused on middle to older adults [ 19 , 23 ], parents [ 22 ] and children [ 20 ]. To our knowledge, only one DCE has been undertaken in young adults, which focused on snacking behaviours in college students [ 21 ].…”

“The Good, The Bad, and the Minimum Tolerable”: Exploring Expectations of Institutional Food

“…Although scarcely researched in this context, previous studies have found choice and autonomy in the institutional food experience to be related to enhanced motivation to consume meals, food satisfaction and well-being [ 57 , 58 , 59 ]. Most of the informants in this study (particularly the younger part of the sample) stressed the importance of expectations related to freedom of choice and were aware that it is not the norm in nursing homes today.…”