[flipflopgirl]

Some good answers.

Anyway you look at this you will need an inspected and licensed kitchen of some sort (try looking into incubator kitchens) and will require some serious cash to set things up.

I was wondering how to make your idea work (ever since you posted this thread...even took it to bed last nite lol) and signed on this am to @ChefBillyB who had hit it out of the park (as per usual lol ;-)

Trying to sell to one very difficult to please group like the elderly would be out of price range for most of your potential customers (I don't like it but ya gotta face the fact that most are on bare sustenance incomes) but to start off with a larger target group and then just scale down and/or alter the meal to fit in the special needs diets makes way more sense.

To take it a step further set up one day a week for pick ups (delivery costs would just crush your profits) and things start making sense.

Cook hard for a couple of days...box up meals...have set times for pick up...and boom.

You are done for the week.

One other thing... @satartia you didn't mention what sort of facility you work in but aren't most of them dependent on the Medicare rules and regs in order to maintain their license?

I did ER case management for a few years and from what little contact I had (trying to get a patient released to a facility or group home) it was hard enuf just to find a bed for some of these forgotten members of society....pretty sure if I started asking about the amenities I would get an earful of hysterical laughter and then...click.

I had to take a three day test for a certification in order to just TALK to them...cannot imagine what you would have to go thru to actually be a purveyor for meals.

Maybe could you think about just getting contracts to run the kitchens in one or two and take a more back door approach?

You are very sweet to be so concerned....kudos.

mimi

 

[flipflopgirl]

One more thing.

Look into personal cheffing.

From what I hear the rules are a bit more lax (altho there are rules) as you buy the ingredients and take them straight to your family's home and do the cooking there.

This way you can bypass the whole licensed kitchen part.

Maybe you could set up an account where donations could be made and apply to a few shut in's accounts and still "make a difference".

There are a few threads on CT re PC'ing  just use the search function.

mimi

 

[flipflopgirl]

Mimi i cant find that one from a few months ago where someone
proposed a similar endeavor. Do you remember it? /img/vbsmilies/smilies/frown.gif

No but I really tried!

This is such a tight niche and fairly new as well was wondering what sort of answers we came up with.

Maybe @satartia will push all her chips in and let us know the outcome..... whatcha say satartia /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif ?

mimi

 

[flipflopgirl]

MiMi.......I think this is it.............New Business and Health Dept.

That was a huge help and if @Silver Pantry is still hanging around and has any suggestions.....?

Thinking the pickup vs delivery may be the lynchpin in this service.

Don't know but could it maybe slip under the rope as a cottage service if care was taken with the menu?

Texas prolly not but ours is pretty strict.

mimi

 

[flipflopgirl]

OT but @Jimyra stirred up a memory....

Was in the hospital for something or the other (remember back in the day when you were admitted for a few days for a simple surgery...these days you are booted out unless still on the deathbed...) ?

Somehow I was ordered a 2 gm salt diet (per day and that ain't a lot) and was served salt free tomato soup.

Oh man...sent the fisherman out for burger and malts lol.

This is a great thread with a lot of sound advice.

The only log jams I can see (other than the dietician part) will be trying to navigate the ACA and Medicare regs (if you deliver to a pvt facility).

Pick up by friends and family (have a waiver of liability along with explicit instructions of how to handle the product in order for it to stay in the "safe zone") would have to be researched as part of the business model ( thanks pan).

mimi