Meals On Wheels Pet Food Delivery Service
There is a growing movement within the Community Meals network of services in the US, towards the provision of food for pets alongside its Meals on Wheels services to the elderly. The We All Love Our Pets (WALOP) initiative began in 2005 and was rapidly taken up by local Meals on Wheels providers across the country.
To qualify, elderly clients must also have been assessed as eligible to receive a Meals on Wheels service. Typically no other pet services are provided other than a monthly delivery of pet food.
In the UK the National Association of Care Caterers, (NACC) is the umbrella organisation for Meals on Wheels providers. It has defined minimum service standards guidelines that have been adopted by many Local Authorities and their sub-contractors.
Meals on Wheels Week runs from Monday 01 October to Sunday 07. This year the service, celebrates 60 years since it was first launched by the Womens Royal Voluntary Service, (WRVS) in 1947. The WRVS delivers over nine million hot and frozen meals to the elderly each year.
Local Authorities sub-contract their catering services to companies such as apetito. It is estimated that in total in the UK, over 40 million Meals on Wheels are served to around 200,000 recipients every year.
This makes for a vast network of daily delivery services to many housebound clients, (clients pay around £2.40 per day for their meal). One US Meals on Wheels provider reports that 25% of its housebound clients have pets. There is little sign that an ancilliary pet food delivery service of the WALOP type that is developing in the US, has been launched anywhere in the UK.