Centicor’s model starts with understanding an operator’s vision for its dining services program, Johnston said, noting that some companies haven’t given it much thought.

“There’s a process to help them really define what that vision is. Every engagement starts with that,” he said.

The second step is always assessing the current operation to identify gaps between what is happening now and what that vision is.

“Out of that comes a very detailed work plan to address the areas where there are gaps to help that client vision become a reality in day-to-day operations,” Johnston said.

That could mean a limited-term consulting engagement or a long-term program-management relationship. Areas of involvement, Johnston said, could be financial review to find ways to bring costs under control or working with the operator on staff member retention.

From a culinary standpoint, the quality of the food may not be what it should be if the menu is stale or the food is “all coming out of cans or out of the freezer and they want to move toward something with a fresh food focus,” he said. Centicor’s role would be to develop menus that incorporate the company’s vision.

“We’ll provide the technology used to help deploy the menu and train the staff on not only producing the menu, but serving the menu from a service standards perspective with the client,” Johnston said.

Not everyone wants to outsource dining services, Phoenix3 Holdings founder, CEO and Managing Director Richard Schenkel added.

In those cases, he said, “Centicor would provide them with some resources that fundamentally allow them to be self-operated but have all the things that we provide and unbundle some of those solutions on a long-term basis to allow them to retain the employees [and] … management team.”

In the senior living space, Schenkel said, approximately 80% to 85% of dining is still self-operated.

For providers that want to retain control of dining services in-house, Centicor also offers consulting services for procurement and supply chain optimization, technology solution optimization and design consultation and implementation, as well as operational oversight and ongoing support.

For companies looking to outsource their dining management, Centicor offers independent counsel to ensure vendor accountability, contract review and renegotiation, operational benchmarking and financial analysis and ongoing management of the outsourcing partner.

The new company differs from Phoenix3 Holdings’ other dining services venture, Restaura, which launched last year. Schenkel said that Restaura works with companies or organizations that want to outsource, whereas Centicor provides opportunities for companies that may not want to take that approach.

Phoenix3 Holdings is a growth partner that invests in lifestyle and integrated service companies focused on the senior living, healthcare and corporate verticals.