The effectiveness of personalized design to feed elderly people

Beyond the physiological age, the elderly population is characterized by a high heterogeneity in terms of physical, psychological and sociological status (Maître et al, 2015). Regarding eating behavior, several studies have highlighted a large inter-individual variability in chemosensory abilities (i.e. the ability to perceive an odor or a taste; Sulmont-Rossé et al, 2015) and oral-heath status (i.e. dental status, salivary flow; ALIMASSENS project), as well as inter-individual variability in food preference and food intake (AUPALESENS project). However, the food offer dedicated to the elderly population, and in particular to elderly people who needs help to obtain and/or prepare food for their meals, is still too often a ‘global’ response, which does not take into account this heterogeneity. This results in a waste of environmental resources (in France, food wastage ranges from 15 to 40% in nursing home), economic resources (despite the cost of providing support to dependent elderly people with regard to meals, the risk of malnutrition reaches 46% among this population) and societal (food offer that does not take one’s preference into account is detrimental to life quality).In such a context, we performed two pilot studies to develop and assess solutions tailored to the expectations of dependent elderly people. In a first study, a panel of elderly people was invited to taste and suggest improvements for savory and sweet dishes. By using these qualitative interviews, industrial partners revised their recipes so that the sensory properties of the dishes were more consistent with elderly people’s expectations. These dishes were then served in nursing homes where they led to a 7% increase for food intake when compared to standard dishes (Van Wymelbeke et al, 2013). In a second study, dependent elderly people were provided with seasonings (e.g. butter, tomato sauce, parsley) to customize the taste of their foods, or with decorative objects (e.g. table cloth, bread basket, flower) to customize their table. While both conditions led to an increase of meal enjoyment, only the provision of seasonings led to a 35% increase for food intake (Divert et al, 2015).Within the context of an ageing population, developing products which will meet the specific nutritional needs of seniors while satisfying their sensory and hedonic expectations constitutes nowadays a major societal and economic challenge