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SDA Dietician of the Year Nominee: Suzanne Quiring

A valued partner to Lakeside Manufacturing for the past six years, Suzanne Quiring, inventor of the SuzyQ Meal Delivery Cart, has been nominated for the Senior Dining Association (SDA) Dietician of the Year Award. With her continuous determination to elevate the long-term community foodservice industry, her nomination comes as no surprise. Her inspiring breakthroughs and leadership have led to great successes in thousands of senior living communities across North America. While the winner of the award will not be announced until later this spring, we wanted to showcase Suzanne and the work she has done since inventing the SuzyQ in 2000. Since then, she has grown tremendously and helped thousands of foodservice directors shift their operations towards a dignified dining plan emphasizing the importance of choice

About Suzanne: 

Suzanne Quiring is a registered dietitian both in Canada and the USA. She has over 30 years of experience in the senior living foodservice industry and has a strong appreciation for the practical and real challenges that come along with providing great meal service to seniors. Investing in a positive dining experience reduces the risk of malnutrition, helplessness, and boredom in seniors. In 2000, Suzanne invented the Suzy Meal Delivery Cart System which allows more resident interaction and choice, hotter food, and less food waste resulting in significant budget savings. To date, she has worked with over 1000 residential care facilities to improve the dining experience for residents. 

Suzanne quiring head-shot image

Quiring Makes a Difference:

As a registered dietitian working with a wide range of senior living communities, Suzanne exemplifies a deep passion for educating her peers on how to make meal service more efficient and personalized for residents. Quiring consistently takes pride in serving as a hands-on leader who solves problems and implements new strategies to better serve residents. Her compassionate and understanding communication towards others creates an inspiring atmosphere across every senior living community she serves in. 

suzyq meal delivery cart

Dedication to Continuous Improvements: 

Quiring has not stopped investing time and energy into improving the standards of what it means to offer person-centered dining services since she began over 30 years ago. Suzanne was a part of an expert research team whose work was published showcasing the significance of relationship-centered dining. To this day, she remains a proud and passionate ambassador of the foodservice industry by continuing to share her knowledge and volunteer time speaking at peer conferences. 

Suzanne’s expertise has been featured in 10 professional journals, including a research paper published in the Journal of Aging in 2021, in which she volunteered her time for over one-year to participate in. She is consistently networking and giving back to aspiring foodservice leaders by speaking at national conferences including ANFP, the Senior Dining Association, the Pioneer Network, and the Eden Alternative International Conference. Within all of her work, Suzanne honors the need for choice, interaction, dignity, respect, and connection during meals to all-in-all create a homelike environment for senior community members. 

suzyq meal delivery cart

Meals are often the highlight for most resident’s days in senior care homes, and Suzanne ensures the experience is fun and interactive for everyone, staff and community members alike. This is all made possible by her educational training that encourages foodservice staff to actively talk and engage with seniors during mealtime to make the dining experience relationship-centered which has a large impact on the mental health of seniors. Lakeside is honored to be able to work and manufacture Suzanne’s cart, the SuzyQ, and to help deliver this solution to senior care communities near and far. The Senior Dining Association, Dietitian of the Year Award recipient will be announced at the SDA conference April 16th-19th and we are so proud that Suzanne was one of the many nominees for this year’s award. Want to explore more about person-centered dining? The SuzyQ Meal Delivery Cart System offers so many benefits, learn more about them here