New Benchmark Culinary Leader: Senior Living Dining is ‘Rapidly Evolving’ Ahead of 2025

Senior living operators have been focusing on revamping culinary and dining programs to enhance the resident experience and inform programming and engagement. Dawn Bradley, Benchmark Senior Living’s Vice President of Culinary, shared future trends she sees for senior living dining rooms in 2025. She believes the biggest opportunities lie in enhancing personalized and health-focused dining, offering elevated culinary experiences, and creating more social and interactive dining experiences. She also discussed the challenges in staffing post-Covid and highlighted emerging trends like holistic wellness integration and technology use in dining programs. To recruit and retain culinary workers, offering competitive wages, benefits, career development, and mental health support are crucial. Benchmark is preparing for the baby boomer generation by focusing on customization, wellness, technology, flexibility, and sustainability in their dining services. Bradley would like to see more plant-based, globally inspired dishes, functional foods, and the use of fresh, local ingredients in senior living communities. The number one line item for senior living food services is typically food cost, followed by staffing. Efficiency in culinary services is achieved through technology integration, standard operating procedures, and menu planning. Benchmark’s new development projects focus on increasing dining engagement, providing more dining options, and incorporating local ingredients. Bradley emphasizes the impact of dining on residents’ overall well-being and quality of life, stressing the importance of offering a variety of meal choices, personalized dietary needs, and creating a welcoming dining atmosphere.