CASE STUDY
Pilgrims’ Friend Society
Serving more than 24,000 meals every month, Pilgrims’ Friend Society works with Lynx Purchasing to maintain quality, control costs and make its food budget go further.
Pilgrims Progress
Providing residents in its 12 residential care homes with nutritious, appealing and high quality food is a priority for Pilgrims’ Friend Society (PFS), the Christian charity committed to supporting elderly people.
That they achieve this despite the many health and dietary challenges presented by their residents is thanks to the commitment of the PFS managers and chefs, ably supported by Lynx Purchasing, who negotiate prices for all the charity’s food and related kitchen items.
PFS was founded in 1807 – when it was known as the Aged Pilgrims’ Friend Society – by a group of Christians who were concerned about “the aged and infirm Christian poor”. Today, PFS helps older people in its 12 residential care homes and four other sites offering independent living, which stretch from north Yorkshire to the south coast.
Over the years, Lynx have developed a firm grasp of our business, so when they suggest using a different fish or cut of meat, I have total faith in that product’s quality and suitability for our residents. Just as importantly, I know the cost is going to be within our budget.
The Challenge
PFS provides three meals per day to residents, equating to just over 24,000 meals per month. Given the age profile, it’s perhaps not surprising that traditional meat, fish and vegetable based meals are the most popular.
Lynx Purchasing has worked with PFS for 22 years, negotiating prices on all food items – fresh, chilled, frozen and dry goods – as well as associated products from cling film to chopping boards.
For Maureen Sim, PFS’s operations director, working with Lynx brings a number of benefits, the main one being to free up her time to focus on other aspects of caring for residents.
She says: “Food purchasing is something I just don’t have to worry about or spend a lot of time on, because I know Lynx will negotiate the best prices to secure the best quality across the range of products we need.
Staff at the homes use a Nutritional Requirements Form to record residents’ likes, dislikes and allergies and the MUST (Must Risk Screening Tool), which identifies risk of malnutrition. Sim says,
“Many of our residents have small appetites, so ensuring they consume sufficient calories to maintain a healthy weight can be a challenge. We work hard to tempt their taste buds with interesting, good quality meals, and by encouraging healthy snacking on foods such as fruit. For a number of residents we also fortify meals with milk powder.”
The Solution
“Lynx have become very knowledgeable about the specialist diets required for many elderly people, so in our discussions they will often suggest alternative diabetic foods, for example. Having this informed support is a huge help.”
Seasonality is another aspect of menu design that Lynx manage to great effect for PFS. “Lynx are talking to their suppliers regularly, so they have their finger on the pulse as to what products are offering good value now and how that might change in the months ahead. So they make recommendations on what foods we should be using that will keep our residents and our budget looking healthy. We certainly don’t have time to monitor prices of all the foods we buy, so are grateful for their expertise.”
The Result
Sim says: “Whenever we want to look at food expenditure, Lynx can send us exactly what we need, straight away. We can look at what each care home is spending on food, right down to individual items. This means we can identify unusual expenditure, which might indicate a purchasing error by the chef at one home. Lynx also provide a report on purchasing patterns across all our homes, and calculate our food spend per resident, which obviously we need to control, while also providing the best quality food we can.”
With an ageing population and a squeeze on care budgets. Sim says, “Our goal is to provide the best possible level of care for our elderly residents, and food is a vital part of this: the right diet can really transform their health and wellbeing, which is wonderful to see.”
“What’s great about working with Lynx is that I feel they always do the very best they can for us on food quality and price. Lynx take the stress out of our food purchasing and allow us to ‘buy better’; there’s no doubt the meals served at PFS homes have been improved thanks to their involvement.”