Background information

GMS GOURMET GmbH
http://www.gourmet.at/en/home.html

GMS GOURMET GmbH is a subsidiary of VIVATIS Holding AG and Austria’s market leader for menu, catering and gastronomy services. GOURMET has devoted itself to the topics of food and culinary achievements. At the same time GOURMET stands for reliability and safety- from being able to trace each of the ingredients over internationally recognized certifications to the perfect meal delivery. The GOURMET team cooks for kindergartens, schools, companies, residential homes, the retail industry as well as for top restaurant businesses in Austria and Germany. GOURMET pays special attention to using high quality, regional and seasonal products and sustainability. 1500 employees passionately put their heart into what they do to exceed the customers’ expectations every day and to make good things better.

Meals on wheels
http://www.gourmet.at/en/areas-of-business/meals-on-wheels.html

GOURMET’s product portfolio for „meals on wheels“ offers individuality and variety at home. Customers are currently especially elderly people, who can’t or no longer want to cook their meals themselves. The menu involves traditional, Austrian dishes and home cooking. Numerous nutrition experts make sure the food tastes good and meets the needs of elderly people (nutritional value, food consistency, seasoning) and if necessary, their individual (dietary) requirements. GOURMET-partners (social organizations) deliver the meals on a daily or weekly basis to the home of the customers.
The priority goal of „meals on wheels“ is to guarantee optimum quality of life in the trusted environment of one’s own home, by delivering the food directly home and making the food preparation as simple as possible.

What makes Meals on Wheels special?
„Meals on Wheels“ distinguishes itself through a high quality diet especially adapted to the needs of elderly people from other conventional food providers.

The competitive environment
All providers of simple and warm meals and ready-to-serve meals. This includes delivery services of restaurants, local communities and aid organizations; Canteens of hospitals, residential homes and self-service restaurants; furthermore, supermarkets offering ready-to-serve meals for one person (refrigerated/deep-frozen) and home services.

The target group
The image below shows for which target group the contest is looking for solutions.

How does "Meals on wheels" work?

The following image explains, how meals on wheels works today.
The graphic below shows the complete process from the first step of ordering the food to the disposal of the packaging.



The order is placed via an order form, which is given to the customer together with the menu for the next week . The customer hands the completed form back to the delivery agent.

Relatives and caretakers help the seniors to complete the order form.

Order changes or cancellation (spontaneous family dinners, hospital stays or holidays) are communicated by the elderly people or their relatives via phone or no order form is submitted in the specific period.

„Meals on wheels“-partners (social organizations) deliver the food directly to the home of the customers. There are defined routes for every region, where they deliver to. The delivery agent drives from house to house, parks the car and brings the food to the customer’s door.

Upon arrival, the 1-3 course meal (soup, main dish, dessert) is either received personally or if requested, deposited in front of the door. The refrigerated menu is delivered in a styrofoam box including a thermal pack.

The food is in a plastic dish (or paper dish if deep-frozen), in which they can be heated. The heating instructions can be found on the label (duration, watts or degree Celsius) as shown on the picture below. 

 
The customer heats the food either immediately or they store it in the fridge for refrigeration. The food can be warmed-up in the supplied plastic or paper dish. Afterwards, it can be put on a plate or into a soup bowl and be eaten.

Eating happens individually. Often, the main dish is consumed for lunch, dessert in the afternoon and the soup remains for dinner. Leftovers can be eaten later.

At the end, the cleaned food packaging is disposed in the plastic or paper bin. The thermal pack and Styrofoam box are returned to the delivery agent.

VIVATIS Holding AG 
http://www.vivatis.at/en

VIVATIS Holding AG is one of the leading Austrian companies in the food and semi-luxury goods sector. The strategic management holding situated in Linz/Oberösterreich consists of established branded goods manufacturers, specials production companies and service providers. Everyday hundreds and thousands of consumers use products provided by the VIVATIS-Group. We face this reliance with best quality and the continuous improvement of our product range. More than 2.700 employees are engaged in the unique success of the VIVATIS-Group, far beyond the borders of Austria – based on many years of experience, profound knowledge and highly productive customer, partner and employee relationships.

LIMAK Austrian Business School
http://www.limak.at/en

The LIMAK Austrian Business School is the center of competence for management development in Austria. The best managers in the country rely on the academic experts and the business practitioners for their professional training. The longtime partnerships with well-known Austrian manufacturing companies emphasize the strong link to practice in all professional training programs of the LIMAK Austrian Business School. Our academic-grounded and practical-based professional training offerings provides a wide portfolio for managers of different levels: starting with the basics of management and specialized short-term courses (IN.TENSIVE certificate course) over extensive MBA-programs (Management and Executive MBA) to company specific Qualifications (LIMAK IN.SPIRE Manager development). Manager development, that changes your point of view and that opens new perspectives for your career. That is what the LIMAK Austrian Business School provides since more than 25 years. As Austria’s first Business School and specialist for postgraduate education for managers, LIMAK was able to enthuse more than 8.700 managers and more than 720 MBA- and Master-Alumni.