School districts take different approaches to menu options for child nutrition
As schools continue to face government regulations and as parents continue to be cautious amidst the pandemic, school districts are implementing different strategies for the upcoming school year.
The back-to-school food service environment is slightly sunnier for K-12 than colleges
On July 14th, Food Management launched its Back to School leadership series examining the outlook and outlining potential coping strategies for the K-12 and college/university foodservice markets with an hourlong session looking at the prospects for these two key onsite dining markets. The session, featuring FM Editor in Chief Becky Schilling and Mark Brandau, group manager for research and consulting firm Datassential, used Datassential survey findings and FM’s ongoing coverage of the onsite dining market to develop a portrait of how things stand for K-12 and college foodservice.
Among the key takeaways was that things look slightly better for the former than the latter because of the nature of the markets.
“K-12 has this irreplaceable job and responsibility to provide meals to a pretty food-insecure population [whose] families might become customers for this kind of foodservice as well, [while] C&U is a little better set up for remote learning” that can be done without students being onsite and serving as customers for campus dining, Brandau noted.
Unsurprisingly, more K-12 survey respondents (38%) were “cautiously optimistic” about the fall than college respondents (25%) and more college respondents (12%) than K-12 respondents (2%) were “very nervous we will not be able to come back from this crisis.” Indeed, 65% of K-12 respondents expect to be open for the fall term while 62% of C&U respondents are “not sure yet.”
That doesn’t mean K-12 doesn’t face challenges. Schilling noted that FM found that while many K-12 programs continued to operate this past spring, the meal count numbers, and therefore revenue, were lagging.
“School districts opened up a lot of grab-and-go centers, but they quickly realized they needed to reduce the numbers because they were seeing fewer students and meals they were serving,” she noted.
In fact, Datassential’s surveys show a 36% drop in the number of meals served this spring by K-12 programs compared to pre-COVID projections, though that was still less than the 48% drop experienced by college dining programs.
Given the uncertainty about how and how much to reopen, K-12 meal program can be expected to continue to struggle with meal counts if large numbers of students stay out of school buildings.
One potential source of revenue to make up for lost student meal sales might be in more meals served to the families of students, and in fact Datassential’s survey shows that 59% of K-12 respondents have already started offering meal kits or take-and-bake items.
Leaning on individually wrapped grab and go
Kara Sample of Greeley Schools in Colorado and Juan Zambrano of San Diego USD in California face differing circumstances this fall, with Greeley Schools opting for a combination of in-person and remote learning classes while San Diego, as of now, is going to begin the school year exclusively online. The approaches bring different challenges.
“The reality right now is that we know that in order to feed our kids safely and appropriately, we’ve had to transition to providing unitized, pre-packaged food items, which is not something we normally do here in Greeley,” Sample observed. Given that circumstances may alter, she says she plans to start the school year with all cold items to keep things simple. Lunches for in-person students will be served in classrooms. Menu examples include PB&J, deli sandwiches and wraps, a bean and cheese dip and “Lunchables-type” kits that let kids assemble their own components from the available choices and which have been “hugely popular” over the summer in Greeley, Sample noted.
Zambrano says his priorities for the start of the school year are to use up existing stock from district warehouses, to emphasize popular items to boost participation and just to “keep things simple” while soliciting menu ideas from the large and diverse staff employed by San Diego USD Nutrition Services. The huge district, one of the 25 largest in the country by enrollment, boasts 186 kitchens across its network, which presents plenty of sources for suggestions.
Packaging is a critical component of both programs. Sample says her district is in the process of acquiring packaging machines that will allow her to begin serving made-from-scratch and even hot entrees because the packages will be oven-able.
Meanwhile at San Diego USD, Zambrano is looking at individually packaged items that will be convenient and appealing when distributed at curbside, the model he will have to use at least at the start of the school year.
“We’ll have IW items like corn dogs, grilled cheese, burgers, sliders and pizza because kids approve and they hold their quality well when packaged with other menu components,” he observed. “They also have a low footprint in our refrigerators, and they have a good food safety track record with us. Of course, we’ll have to include handling and food safety instructions with them.”
At the start, these will all be vendor pre-packs but Zambrano says as the year goes on he’d like to start drawing down the large quantity of items in district warehouses to produce his own individually wrapped meals such as teriyaki, carnita, mac ‘n cheese and chili bowls, or even repurpose burger patties into Salisbury steak that could be served with mashed potatoes.
Finding revenue streams to child nutrition programs
Finding revenue as a K-12 food service operator is going to be trickier than ever in the upcoming school year as districts decide between remote learning, in-person socially distant learning and/or a mix of both. Foodservice directors from two of the largest districts in the country discussed the various ways their districts are achieving this goal, from food trucks to increasing reimbursable meals to coffee stations.
Fairfax County Public Schools is the tenth largest school district in the country with 188,000 students, all of whom will be learning virtually through the end of 2020. With no children in schools, Rodney Taylor, director food & nutrition services, is planning on deploying the same summer strategies during the fall to feed students. In Fairfax, where 28% of the school-age population comes from at-risk homes, that’s meant finding unconventional ways to deliver meals.
Taylor and his team brought meals to the local churches, which then distributed those in a set up similar to a Meals On Wheels program. He plans to use this method moving into the start of the school year, but he also has an advantage up his sleeve: buses.
Fairfax has the second largest transportation fleet in the country behind New York and in front of Greyhound, according to Taylor. And he plans to deploy them this fall in the same way Orange County Public Schools has been using their buses for the past few months.
In Orange County several years ago, the department retrofitted an old school bus to hold up to 500 meals. The child nutrition team used that bus to distribute meals to students located outside campus grounds, something Taylor will employ this fall.
Buses aren’t the only mobile device Orange County is using. They also have a food truck, which has been newly redesigned with a lower window for smaller children and will drive around neighborhoods offering food to students from the district.
Lora Gilbert, senior director, food and nutrition services, whose team has been experimenting with new revenue streams for a decade, is once again looking for new ways to serve the student population, only 30% of which Gilbert expects to be in schools come the start of the school year.
One of those tactics has been modeling the district’s foodservice program after other segments of the onsite food industry, including turning cafeterias in some high schools into student unions akin to a college dining hall where students can eat, study and hang out. This increased participation by 15% in Orange County.
The district has also begun to lean into students’ love of Starbucks. Gilbert described the district’s imitation of Starbucks at some schools as 8-ounces of milk, to meet USDA requirements, with coffee flavoring and frothed milk on top that’s made with xantham gum.
“Our main focus is, what does it take to get [students] in [to the cafeteria], and then, can we get a reimbursable meal?” said Gilbert.
Fairfax has also used trending items at colleges to enhance its programs. Rotisserie chicken, inexpensive for the district to make, has been introduced to outdoor barbecues that the district has been hosting throughout the summer where kids eat for free and parents can purchase their own meals for $2.
But there are challenges with large gatherings or drive-thrus (which both counties use but are unsure its future with USDA waivers) when CEP comes into the mix since wifi can be spotty outdoors and IDs need to be counted for participation in the program, something Gilbert and her team in Orange County are currently trying to work out.
Fairfax has been using ticket counters for CEP but is aware that getting by this year will require an abundance of help from the USDA in terms of waivers and grants, something he suggests others take advantage of as well.
At the end of the day, the highest form of revenue is reimbursable meals: “We’re trying to get in as many reimbursable meals to children because that’s our highest source of revenue,” said Gilbert.
One hundred twenty one schools are now on CEP in Orange County, which has reduced its $3 to $4 million budget significantly to put toward other projects like an automated database similar to the one currently running in Fairfax, which Taylor admits of the program that, “You have to invest money to make money.”
Taylor suggests, “Think outside of your organization for new revenue streams.” Fairfax does that by using its six central kitchens to cook for outside organizations, like prisons, Air Force bases and daycare centers.
