The Development of Entrepreneurial Skills in Healthy Food for the Elderly

Abstract

This research aimed at developing the entrepreneurs of healthy food for the elderly in Thonburi old-town conservation areas. The study is Research and Development (R & D) starting with the investigation of the entrepreneurs' needs for developing healthy food for the elderly, healthy food consumption behavior and needs of the elderly. The workshop and training then had been conducted to educate the entrepreneurs about healthy food and production via nine series videos. Next, the healthy food for the elderly products had been created, as well as the designs of the food labels and the packaging. Later, the products evaluation had been conducted starting with the entrepreneurs selling the products, and then the products' quality had been assessed. The research instruments were the questionnaire surveys, and the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, i.e., frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The results showed that most of the healthy food entrepreneurs did not have a menu of healthy food for the elderly, accounted for 84.40 percent. Most of the elderly which accounted for 71.60 percent had special needs for healthy food consumption to be promoted by providing them an easy access to those healthy food distributions. The entrepreneurs had the highest levels of knowledge and understanding in terms of planning healthy food menu, cooking for the elderly, and selecting raw materials for the elderly, respectively. The results of business operations after enhancing the knowledge and skills in healthy food for elderly of these entrepreneurs yielded that the entrepreneurs could develop the healthy food cooking techniques for the elderly and yet further develop to get a brand of healthy food products for the elderly as well as be able to introduce the developed healthy food menu for the elderly to the market.