Cooperation is key to offering healthful school lunches

Nation's Restaurant News, Oct 14, 1996 by Paul King

On Oct. 16 foodservice directors in 92,000 school districts across the country will invite students' parents and relatives to lunch to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the National School Lunch Program.

The "Take Your Family To Lunch Day" is being sponsored by the American School Food Service Association, which also is celebrating its 50th year. The event is part of National School Lunch Week.

ASFSA president Janet Bantly said the luncheon is "a dynamic, interactive way to let American families know" how much school lunch has changed over the past 50 years.

Any parent of school-age children should take advantage of this opportunity to get a real education in what their children are being offered at the noontime meal.

However, it would be interesting to gather together all those parents after the fact and compare notes with them, because what parents in one district will find is going to be quite different from what those in another district will experience.

Consider some of the happenings in school foodservice in just the last year or so.

Foodservice operators in two of the nation's three largest school districts -- New York and Chicago -- have suffered public-relations debacles because of their mishandling of foods. The districts were accused of keeping, and in some cases serving, foods that had passed their expiration dates.

The charges caused Chicago to begin making a change from self-operated to contracted foodservice. In New York the foodservice director was suspended briefly and then reinstated.

At the other end of the spectrum, Venice (Calif.) High School has kicked off a healthful-meals program that features vegetarian entrees. For $1.25 teenagers can purchase items like vegetable calzones, cactus bread and a variety of salads as well as hamburgers, pizza and chicken nuggets.

To develop the program, Venice administrators tapped the expertise of the founder of a chain of health-food stores, the National Potato Board and 12 chefs, including Wolfgang Puck.

A host of other schools have gone commercial in order to boost participation and sales. It is no longer unusual to find Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Subway and other fast-food kiosks serving fare in school cafeterias. Sometimes they are options alongside typical USDA-approved and reimbursable meals. In other cases they have become the foodservice operation.

In several states small districts have banded together into purchasing cooperatives in order to increase their buying power. The goal is to be able to bring more variety and higher-quality food items into schools at bulk costs much lower than those individual schools would be charged.

One area in central California has a cooperative of 47 small, mostly rural districts. Separately, those districts wouldn't have rated a second look from some of the large food manufacturers. Combined, they represent buying power of $25 million -- second in California to only the Los Angeles Unified School District.

In addition, the cooperative can handle and process USDA commodities at two-thirds the cost charged to individual districts. All told, that means students are receiving higher-quality menu items at reasonable prices. Districts within the buying group have reported increases of 10 percent or greater in student participation at lunch.

Parents who take the chance to view their kids' cafeterias at lunch this week likely will find that the days of mystery meat, boxed and frozen pizza rubbery hot dogs and hockey-puck hamburgers are long gone.

However, not all districts are created equal either in terms of financial wherewithal, technical expertise or marketing savvy. So there is no blanket endorsement of school foodservice operations in the '90s.

But operators should not expect parents to be silent. They should encourage them to visit their children's school cafeterias and listen to any comments or criticisms the parents may have.

If the parents find that their children are eating the same kind of food they did when they were in school, operators should be responsive to their complaints.

There are many options available to districts for improving foodservice. In the '90s there is no excuse for '50s-style foodservice.