How to let the elderly "eat well"｜15-minute living circle elderly care service survey, community canteen

Shanghai has a large elderly population, and elderly care has always been a matter of great concern for urban development. In recent years, documents such as "Shanghai's 14th Five-Year Plan for Basic Public Services" and "Shanghai's 15-minute Community Living Circle Planning Guidelines" have continued to promote the construction of public service platforms and content at home. There are also a series of life services and convenient facilities that are well received, such as community canteens, pocket parks, etc.

Compared with other groups, the elderly with limited activity radius have greater urgency and dependence on public services at their doorsteps. So what is the usage situation among the elderly? What elderly care problems can they solve, and which elderly people’s demands cannot they meet? We conduct research on this topic.

The first article launches a community canteen. In the past year, it has become popular. Open the online platform and enter "community canteen". There are 80,000 related results in Shanghai, some of which have become "Internet celebrity check-in points" for young people. For example, at the Yuyuan Community Canteen, you can enjoy Nanxiang Xiao Long Bao, the same style as the Chenghuang Temple. With views of the West Bank River, Xuhui Binjiang Canteen has its own coffee shop and library. The community canteen in the Wutong Courtyard of Hudec's old building 66 allows you to enjoy the atmosphere of eating in a garden house. Hongqiao AI Community Canteen is famous for its robotic arm serving spoons. The community canteens in the "Life Box" of the comprehensive service point in Xuhui District are of high quality, low price and with a wide variety of varieties. Fighting for environment, "rice road", service, and facilities, the Eight Immortals crossed the sea and each showed their magical powers.

However, as a public service of the government, do self-built community canteens in the streets play a supporting role? No matter how much young people like it, does it meet the needs of the surrounding elderly people who can be reached within a 15-minute walk? In addition to the government's entry into the market, will it be more efficient and flexible to introduce more market entities, explore more diversified selection models, and use market mechanisms?

We took Bansongyuan Road Street in Huangpu District as the main research point. During the survey, it was found that: Shanghai's elderly care most about "delicious food" and are less concerned about price subsidies; the elderly have relatively little demand for going out for dinner; time-honored brands such as Dafugui are actually the communities in the minds of the elderly Canteen⋯⋯

There are also some issues to think about. First of all, as a public service, is there any limit to the canteen’s government support function?

Secondly, is it better to concentrate all resources at one large service point, or is it better to distribute them on a small scale near various communities?

Thirdly, how to strike a balance between the elderly’s individual needs for diet and the government’s standardized services?

After all, there are still only a few community canteens that are located in prime locations and are very popular. In the context of building a community canteen on every street, we need to further explore how a public service, its underlying model, demand, resource allocation, etc. can be improved to a higher level and become more sustainable.

Shopping for food and cooking is an important part of the life of the elderly. It is highly personalized and integrates a series of other social functions such as exercise, social interaction, and information acquisition. It seems that whether it is the "taste" of eating or the "mood" of cooking "It is difficult to be covered by a "canteen".

In Bansongyuan Road Subdistrict, Huangpu District, the area covers an area of ​​2.87 square kilometers and has a permanent population of 102,000, including more than 35,000 elderly people. There are a total of 30 units in the jurisdiction that provide meal assistance services and subsidies for the elderly. Among them, there is 1 self-built canteen for the elderly in the community, 22 meal assistance points for community residents, and a total of 7 meal assistance points for social businesses and elderly care institutions. The longest distance from the neighborhood committee to the elderly canteen in the jurisdiction is 909 meters, which takes about 13 minutes to walk.

Most elderly people said they would not go to the community elderly canteen every day. 1-2 times a week is the choice of many elderly people, and what they value most is the quality of the dishes, such as good taste and variety, followed by price.

The cost of self-built community canteens for the elderly in the streets is very high. Taking the Senior Citizen Canteen on Bansongyuan Road Street as an example, the current total investment cost is about 1.5 million yuan, and the cost of subsequent operations and space efficiency improvement has not yet been included; the investment of the elderly care institution is second, relying on the original institutional canteen, adding However, social catering enterprises such as time-honored brands have relatively little additional cost investment in hardware and manpower, and their main efforts are focused on improving the quality of dishes and services.

Rather than staring at a community canteen, the elderly hope that the streets can provide more diverse choices. In Bansongyuan Road, elderly people over 75 years old receive 10 5-yuan meal subsidy coupons every month, and the flow of these meal coupons explains to us the actual needs of the elderly.

From January to September 2023, the community issued a total of 209,123 subsidy coupons, with a total amount of 1,045,615 yuan. Among them, the largest number of elderly people who write off subsidy coupons are time-honored restaurants represented by Dafugui, accounting for more than 98.5%, surpassing community self-built canteens and other meal-assisted restaurants.

In addition, services at doorsteps are also more popular, and the closer the points are, the greater the number of write-offs.

But for businesses in special categories, such as dim sum shops, distance factors have little impact. Within the neighborhood, the furthest community willing to go to a snack shop to redeem meal coupons is 2 kilometers away in a straight line.