Michigan districts get more for less buying cooperatively - Celebrating 40 Years of School Lunch

Food and Nutrition, Oct, 1986 by Mary Jane Getlinger

Michigan Districts Get More for Less Buying Cooperatively

What is the biggest problem for school food service directors?

"Determining quality,' says Vera Jehnsen, former food service director from Oakland County, Michigan. For nearly 25 years, Jehnsen has been involved with a food service cooperative that serves 20 to 25 school districts in Oakland County. "Selecting the best product for the best price is the goal of the cooperative,' she says.

An interesting aspect of Oakland County's cooperative is that participating districts bid for food as a group but purchase individually. The arrangement not only gives individual school districts more purchasing power, it also gives school lunch managers valuable experience in evaluating products and purchasing.

Four cooperatives now work together

Oakland County was the first food cooperative of its kind in southeastern Michigan. Since 1965, three neighboring counties--Macomb, Genesee, and Wayne--have followed Oakland's lead and set up similar cooperatives. While each of the cooperatives operates independently, they work together on developing specifications and evaluating food products through what is called the Quad County Purchasing Committee.

The committee, as Genesee County food service consultant Gloria Bourdon explains, is a logical extension of the cooperative buying concept. "Prior to 1981, each cooperative was going through the same product evaluation process, asking the same companies to provide the same samples. We decided we could have one product evaluation and simplify the process.'

The committee includes the school food service consultants from each of the four counties, two local food service directors from each county, and industry representatives. Although industry representatives are not required to attend all committee meetings, they do actively participate in writing specifications, setting up evaluation sessions, and putting together workshops.

Committee members make up a list of the most often used food products, evaluate the products against specifications, tally the amounts needed by participating schools, and then three times a year put out bid proposals to the suppliers. Suppliers have access to product ratings and are given 2 to 4 weeks to send back their bids. The cooperatives award the bids, but the schools order individually.

Foods evaluated in careful process

"To make the bidding process effective,' says Bourdon, "the purchasing committee writes specifications that spell out exactly what the buyer wants. The buyer must determine if the product meets specifications through a product analysis, referred to as cutting, sampling, evaluating, or testing, depending on the type of product involved.'

During product analysis, foods available from different food vendors are compared for flavor, color, uniformity, absence of defects, sugar content, consistency, and yield weight. "Without good specifications and product analysis, it is difficult for a school to purchase food that meets program needs,' explains Bourdon.

Before the purchasing committee was set up, each county had its own 2-day product analysis with representatives from participating schools testing the samples.

"The way we work now is not all that different,' says Chacella Russell, Macomb County food service consultant. "The evaluation is done in a day, but the committee spends a great deal of time setting up and later tabulating results. There are more people involved now. In addition to representatives from the schools, we work extensively with industry.

"We operate one product evaluation and each county shares the results. We are not duplicating efforts asking the same vendors for test products. And vendors are willing to give us more information and more samples because they know there are potentially large sales involved.'

After the evaluation, bid proposals are sent to the suppliers. Suppliers have the opportunity to know how their product rated with others being considered by the cooperatives. Each cooperative has its own bids and awards contracts to the two or three best companies that will agree to deliver minimum amounts needed by schools.

When schools want to order food, they place their orders directly with one of these suppliers. Because of the evaluations and the carefully worded specifications developed by the committee, school lunch managers know they will be getting a good quality product at a reasonable cost.

Cooperatives offer many advantages

"There are lots of advantages to cooperative purchasing,' says Russell. "Small districts can get the latest information on food products, and they can get better quality for better prices. Often food service directors in the smaller districts do not have training in purchasing, nor do they have the time to do extensive evaluations on their own.'

As Russell explains, it's not cost effective for small districts to do extensive evaluations, and it can also be difficult for them to get vendors to participate. "Companies do not devote the time to small orders that they do to large ones,' she says.