By Jennifer Edwards
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LEBANON - Home cooking is coming back to Meals on Wheels.

The meals, which to go more than 600 seniors a day, will be prepared again in the kitchen at Warren County Community Services in Lebanon starting Aug. 4, officials said.

Complaints about food quality followed a change in vendors this month, officials said.

"We were not happy with the quality," said Larry Sargeant, executive director of Warren County Community Services. "We have been testing and eating and this was done as a trial thing. The seniors are not happy with the quality either, so we are moving back to the high quality meals we have had in the past."

The county also plans to use a different food vendor, but the new one hasn't been selected yet, said Arlene de Silva, chief operating officer of the Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio, which oversees the Meals on Wheels program.

The old food vendor, Valley Services of Carthage, still will provide food for the other Meals on Wheels programs in the Tristate - Hamilton, Clermont and Clermont counties. But other options are being considered, she added.

The council hired Valley Services for Warren County's program June 1 to prepare and serve chilled meals instead of the previous hot ones cooked from scratch.

The change, Sargeant has said, stemmed from food safety concerns as the Meals on Wheels program grew and delivery routes stretched as long as three hours.

But dozens of seniors rejected the meals, saying they looked and tasted bad. About 30 dropped out of the home delivery program and others stopped coming where meals are served.

The program serves more than 200,000 meals a year - 510 people daily with home deliveries and 130 a day at seven sites.

Earlier this month, so many seniors complained to Warren County Commissioner Mike Kilburn that he took a meal a day for two weeks to investigate.

After a few days, Kilburn called the meals unacceptable and pushed for change.

On Friday, he still wasn't happy the program isn't reverting to hot meals.

"The commissioners won't settle for anything less. The ball is in our court," he said. "We successfully served those meals for years warm and we haven't de-invented the flame."

But a few seniors expressed relief Friday that progress was being made.

"At least somebody is doing something," said Mary Ziegler, who volunteers delivering the meals with her husband, Larry.

"Last week the meals were a little bit better. We had sausage and beans and cole slaw and cornbread.

"The week before they were terrible. We had a tuna fish sandwich that looked ugly and had browning lettuce. Your cat might like it, but I don't know about your dog. It was not good."

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com