The COVID-19 pandemic continues challenge nearly every area of hospital operations, and food service is no exception. And because food service programs generate revenues for hospitals, managers have gone to great lengths to re-energize these activities in order to contribute to their organizations’ bottom lines. From offering brick oven pizza to delivering food by drone, no idea seems too outlandish to try, it seems.

For Unidine at New Milford Hospital in Milford, Conn., one such initiative involved launching a meal order program with curbside pickup. The new initiative lets the hospital dining program add some of the external business it lost when coronavirus forced it to bar visitors, according to Food Management.

The dining team at New Milford Hospital came up with this idea when profits were down during COVID. The cafeteria at New Milford Hospital traditionally enjoyed a robust street business with members of the community, especially the elderly, congregating in the eatery to enjoy its fresh, healthy, scratch-prepared and economically priced offerings, along with the socialization opportunities, which promptly stopped at the start of COVID.

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