Meals Into Marketing: Lcs, Aspenwood, Hdg Use Food To Wow Senior Living Prospects 

When it comes to marketing strategies, some senior living operators are leading with the stomach.

For operators such as Health Dimensions Group, Aspenwood and LCS, promoting the food that residents eat while living at their communities is a good way to show the quality of life they offer. As such, senior living companies incorporate dining into their marketing strategies and budget accordingly.

“We’ve seen an increasing focus on the importance of food in the sales process over the last five years,” Matt Garnett, regional director of dining services at LCS, said. “It’s ballooned to the point where, from a branding standpoint, we are very cognizant of multiple different dining options and restaurant style experiences.”

That shift is in part due to the changing tastes and trends of seniors coming into the industry, with the newest baby boomers coming in with entirely different expectations than the previous generation.

While the prospect’s family and caretakers weigh things like care and maintenance in their decisions, residents focus more on their future dining experiences, making it an important touchpoint, according to Mika Stevenson, vice president of culinary excellence at HDG.

“Senior living communities are really starting to expand and advance,” Stevenson told Senior Housing News. “They’re really focusing on that food piece to be a selling point.”

Food as a selling point

Dining is part of the tour process at HDG, and each of the operator’s 49 communities has a signature dish. No one on a tour leaves the community without getting something from its kitchen, Stevenson said. Multiple newly moved-in residents told him that their community’s dining options helped push them to commit to living there.

“Half my social media feed is all culinary,” Stevenson said. “You want to showcase that, and it’s a big selling point for people.”

The operator’s marketers highlight dining with a “flavors beyond expectations” section on the company’s website dedicated to each of its communities’ cuisines. With dining trends shifting toward fast-casual with the baby boomers, Stevenson said having bistros is beneficial for the touring process, but at HDG communities see lower use from residents.

LCS uses dining as an attraction for communities that are not even completed yet. The company is inviting prospects to a dining event at a community that is not yet open in Calabasas, California with chefs and a five-course meal. That approach has helped generate sales momentum, according to Garnett.

“It’s really done wonders for us to tell the food and beverage story, as well as creating a community,” Garnett said. “They’re having dinner with other residents who are going to move in … that experience has started to form you know relationships and building a sense of community without having community walls.”

Aspenwood incorporates food into the marketing and touring process, and Christopher Wiley, executive director of The Village of River Oaks, an Aspenwood community in Houston, by inviting prospects to have a meal either with a staff member or, other residents.

Aspenwood recently completed renovations and added a cafe space at the community. Sales teams bring prospects into both the formal dining room and the new cafe option to highlight the differences in tone and offerings.

The Village of River Oaks maintains a presence at by providing free samples at local events such as those hosted at the nearby Rice University. People who eat the food are often surprised it came from a dining venue within a senior living community, Wiley said. 

Budgeting for dining as a marketing spend

Senior living operators are building food spends into communities’ marketing budgets and using that money to host events or getting out in the community.

The Village of River Oaks earmarks some of its marketing budget for food to serve to tourgoers, Wiley said.

“We’re inviting them in, so we’ll have a nice spread for them,” Wiley said.

Dining services are a cost center at LCS, meaning the company doesn’t expect to make a profit from its culinary offerings. In recent years, the company has upped its spend on outside catering when it hosts local area groups. The company partners with local rotary clubs and groups that use the community for gatherings, which acts partially as a marketing opportunity and another way to bring in ancillary revenue.

“The focus, more than anything, is on that resident experience,” Garnett said. “We need to make sure that we invest in that to get the outcomes that we want, and to you know attract the sort of clientele that we want living in our communities.”

HDG looks at its food and marketing budgets based on the amount of surrounding competition in order to better stand out, Stevenson said. While rural markets are able to get away with significantly smaller budgets while weighing the benefits of being involved. Chamber of commerce meetings, as an example, didn’t provide much for a marketing opportunity other than spreading the company’s name, Stevenson said.

Meanwhile, catering an event at a cardiac rehabilitation clinic with smoothies brings in more inherent value due to the clientele likely needing senior care services within a few years, he added.

“You need to focus and be really specific on what your audience is and where you’re going,” he said. “I just don’t know if there’s a lot of value with every single thing under the sun.”

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