Food Service Solutions “What’s For Lunch?” Newsletter, Vol 7
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Change You Can Taste:
School Lunch Program Gets a Makeover Article from blogs.usda.gov
Written by Audrey Rowe, Food & Nutrition Service Administrator and Dave Shipman, Agricultural Marketing Service Administrator
When you walk around many of the nation’s cafeterias, you will
notice that plenty of changes have taken place on school lunch
menus. Thanks to new standards and other efforts by the USDA,
the lunches for our children have become healthier.
The new standards, which were implemented for the 2012-2013
school year, made significant improvements to the National School
Lunch Program. Some of the changes include offering only fatfree
or low-fat milk options, ensuring that fruits and vegetables are
served every day of the week, and increasing the amount of whole
grain-rich foods on menus.
USDA has a large role in making these healthy menu changes
possible. The department’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) administers
the National School Lunch Program while the Agricultural
Marketing Service (AMS) purchases the program’s meats, poultry,
fruits, and vegetables. In total, USDA purchases about 15 to 20
percent of the products in the School Lunch Program.
“We take pride in what we do here at USDA,” said AMS’ Commodity
Procurement Branch Chief Duane Williams. “In the past couple of
years, we made a concerted effort to purchase healthier products.
Our team of experts has helped us do things like reducing the fat
and sodium levels in many of our products.”
Recently, Patriot High School in Nokesville, Va., held a food tasting.
This open house invited all of the students and parents in the
Prince William County School District to sample some potential
foods that may be on the menu next year. A team of USDA employees
got a chance to participate in the event and see children enjoying
the healthier options. “It’s great to see these children eating the
foods we purchase and trying some new dishes too,” said Williams.
When looking around the crowded cafeteria, there were examples
of change in every dish. Children sampled things like edamame salads,
spicy chicken breasts, sweet and sour chicken, and chick pea
salads. Many of the foods featured at the event were purchased
by USDA, including chicken fajita meat used to make chicken tostadas
and the beans and raisins that starred in a sweet rice dish.
From the smiles and positive reactions from the taste testers, it’s
obvious that the dishes were a hit and that the palettes of schoolaged
children have evolved over the years.
FNS’ Program Support Branch Chief Laura Walter observed that
“schoolchildren are becoming sophisticated eaters.” Walter also
mentioned that FNS has “adjusted the foods in the program to meet
the changing demands of students.”
Another element of change in school meals programs is the increased
student involvement in menu planning. “The recipes for
the foods featured at the Patriot High School food tasting were
developed by employees,” said Serena Suthers, Prince William
County Food Service Director. “But during the event, students
and their parents were able to provide feedback about the items.”
This enables children to participate in the menu selection process
and develop an appreciation for finding creative ways to make the
menus healthier. Students also now participate in programs like
Recipes for Healthy Kids to team up with chefs and others in the
community to develop recipes for items on their school’s menu.
USDA is excited about the improvements to the National School
Lunch Program. Events like the food tasting at Patriot High School
are an important step in getting communities excited about the
healthier options as well.
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Business Savvy in the Lunchroom
Written by Amy Gannon | Intern at Pisanick Partners, LLC
With the new regulations being implemented as a result of the
Healthy, Hunger Kids Act of 2010, the spotlight is shining brightly
on nutrition in the lunch room. Fruit and vegetable requirements,
whole-grain minimums, milk standards, and calorie limits
are parts of the new specifications that school lunches must
now meet. Although many lunchrooms have already been on
the path to providing healthier options, many schools must
make significant changes to be compliant.
In the current atmosphere, it can be all too easy to ignore food
costs in favor of building the healthiest options available. As
with any hurdle, ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.
And again comes the question heard time and time again –
doesn’t healthy food cost more?
The average school lunch program spends just about $1 on
food for each meal. With pricing this tight, you are almost guaranteed
to exceed budget if you ignore food costs. Despite our
best intentions to keep nutrition at the forefront, we are doing
a disservice to all involved – the schools, students, food service
personnel, and ourselves – if we do not address budget.
So what can we do?
Look at pricing breakdown. It sounds so simple (and in many
ways it is) but it is often looked over. At one school recently surveyed,
students were being served canned cherries that cost
upwards of $67 for six #10 cans. Compare that other fruits
such as pears that may be just over $30 for six #10 cans – just
about half the cost and more appealing to the students – and
the problem becomes clear. The school had the best of intentions
in attempting to diversify the menu and offer a healthy choice, but it took the price comparison to show potential savings in a simple fruit swap.
Take advantage of increased funding. Completing the sixcent
certification document is no picnic, especially when six
cents by itself hardly seems like it would be worth the effort.
But once savings for even a month are extrapolated, the documentation
is more than worth the effort.
Be creative with commodity items. That commodity vegetable
not looking great? Blend it and add it to soup. The veggie
burger a bit of a splurge? Meet the protein requirements
and stretch the more expensive items with a bit of commodity
cheese.
Re-evaluate standard practices. Another surveyed school
participated in the same milk procurement bidding procedure
year after year with part of their procurement allowing
for price escalation. With their contract, milk prices increased
by seven cents over the course of the year. Seven cents may
not sound significant, but with the budget for an entire meal
already at those seven cents represent a 7% increase.
Managing a budget along with meeting high student standards
and becoming compliant with new nutrition guidelines
is no small task for food service directors. But with some creative
thinking and budget examinations, savvy food directors
can help all involved navigate this dynamic field.
Pisanick Partners specializes in menu enhancement
and creation to maximize K-12 participation,
compliance, and affordability! Please contact
maureen@pisanickpartners.com for more information.
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K-12 School Online Payments, Programs and Email Notifications. A video series.
Video 23 discusses how MySchoolAccount, MSA helps your schools k-12 point of sale, online payment programs talks about the the ease of email notifications for your children’s accounts.
written by Milt Miller, President at Milton Miller Consulting
In today’s school food service arena, computerized tracking of food sales are tied to each student’s account. This has become normal, unfortunately so has the accumulation of bad debt from to the lack of an enforceable charge policy. The meaning of “Enforceable Charge Policy” is one that embraces the pre Point-of-Sale era’s “Three Strikes and You’re Out” policy, outlined by the National School Lunch Program. Basically this policy states that a student may charge up to three meals and after the third meal he/she is placed on “Cash Only” status. Cash only means that a student may not receive a school lunch without first paying the full price for that lunch at the time of service. In grades K-3, a school lunch will be provided for the child that is a standard reimbursable lunch picked by the cafeteria to be served to students that have exceeded the three charges. Grades 4-12 do not have to receive a school lunch unless the Board Policy for charging meals allows and then it should be the standard meal provided to grades K-3.
While the above policy may appear cruel and heartless, let’s look at how we got to this point to begin with. Before the switch over from lunch tickets to computerized lunch tracking, students received their tickets before going to breakfast or lunch using a roster system. Using this system, “free” students are given a ticket, “reduced” students paid $0.40 for their ticket and both are checked off on a roster by the lunch lady. Students who are “paid” remit the full price of the lunch and were given a ticket and checked off on the appropriate roster as well. This system, while cumbersome, served a purpose and showed little if any debt as papers recording lunch loans were lost or thrown away at the end of the year giving a false sense of security when tracking bad debt. Along comes the computerized POS system giving better accountability and eliminating all chances of overtly identifying low income students. This system got students through the lines quicker and enabled a true cashless lunch program with complete financial tracking ability of transactions. Having always fed students without the worry of bad debt, many School Food Administrators (SFAs) set charge parameters too high and allowed for the charging of “a la carte” items. Many districts did not consider a cash policy or the impact of a cashless system because they had nothing to base it on, hence the arrival of bad debt.
The information provided by the new POS system was shocking to an SFA who had never experienced this type of situation before. Leaving unchecked parameters that were set too high or not given enough consideration can put up some large negative numbers that may never be collected. Going through a District Magistrate or collection agency can create bad publicity for an SFA, as the public does not look at a school cafeteria as a self sustaining entity. School cafeterias after all are to provide meals to students without worrying about the money, that’s why people pay taxes! This is the sentiment and belief of the general public. A well thought out and thoroughly communicated “Charge Policy” can eliminate this thinking and work towards cutting into this bad debt situation.
Let’s look at the information provided by most computerized POS systems and consider how negative balances can be controlled from the start and allow SFAs to regain control of the situation, while also providing better service to their student customers and their parents. Today’s POS systems provide the SFA with the ability to set charge parameters that will control student spending before it gets out of hand. As outlined in the NSLP charge guidelines, an SFA needs only to allow the charging of no more than three meals. In most cases this keeps the bleeding to less than ten dollars. POS systems also show the students account balance at the time of each transaction allowing the cashier to remind the student that they are in danger of being placed on “Cash Only” and will no longer be permitted to receive a lunch without first paying the cash price for that meal. POS systems allow SFAs to review low balance reports on a daily basis and send letters to parents alerting them that their student could be listed as “Cash Only” if their account is not paid.
This also allows the SFA to send a Free and Reduced Lunch
Application home with a letter reminding parents that if they are eligible for
this program they need to apply before their student loses his/her ability
to charge meals. It also aids the SFA in controlling bad debt that may not
be recovered after a student is found to be eligible for a free lunch. In
most districts I have observed when a large invoice for a lunch account is
received, Free and Reduced paperwork is sent in the debt incurred is never
collected. Better to stop this charging before it gets into triple digits as well
as get Free and Reduced Applications in earlier.
Limiting student meal choices also puts pressure on parents to settle
accounts as students do not like having their choices limited. A healthy
lunch made up of all USDA Commodities and white fat free milk, tends to
get their attention. The rule is you must feed your students but you may
choose what components make up the meal. In most cases once their
choices are restricted the money seems to come in. In other cases where
parents are still not bringing their accounts up to date or not applying
for free or reduced meals, outside agencies can be alerted and pressure
applied in those areas.
Before starting to enforce these measures, a Board approved Charge Policy
must be adopted and publicized throughout the district which will inform all
students and parents of the districts intent to limit the charging of lunches.
It’s a good rule of thumb to get the approval of the state educational authority
as to the compliance of this policy with the NSLP guidelines on the charging
of school meals. While this type of action may not bring current bad debt to
an end it will provide control moving forward and will relieve a portion of the
existing debt.
The author of this article is a strong believer in providing all of our school students with
a well balanced and nutritious breakfast or lunch, however he is also a former school
food service administrator who has seen this situation first hand and has seen how
detrimental bad debt can be to the sustainability of a program.
Video 7 discusses how MySchoolAccount, MSA helps your schools k-12 point of sale, online payment programs talks about the the ease tracking purchases for your children’s accounts.
If you’ve ever gone through the process of organizing, setting up
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K-12 School Food Service Online Payment Programs | #6
Video 23 discusses how MySchoolAccount, MSA helps your schools k-12 point of sale, online payment programs talks about the the ease of deposits and transfers for your children’s accounts.
K-12 School Cafeteria Management Software: Revitalizing the School Lunch Line through Fingerprint Identification Part 3 of 3
By now many principals, superintendents, administrators and K-12 food service operators have heard of school lunch biometrics, or the
use of high tech devices such as fingerprint readers, to recognize students and allow for the automated payment and accounting of
school lunch purchases. Once the province of the FBI and criminal investigators, fingerprint
technology is now regularly being harnessed at K-12 schools around the nation. Not for Orwellian motives such as surveillance, identification or tracking, but for school lunches and breakfasts. Examples
cited in this report include the Penn Cambria and Wilson School Districts
in Pennsylvania; JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano,
California; and Fairfield School District of Fairfield, Texas.
Yet this is only a small sampling of the hundreds of school districts
across the United States that are currently implementing such systems.
Using fingerprint ID technology, foodservice operators are not only
speeding lunch lines and simplifying payment, but also virtually
eliminating lunch fraud, bullying, and reversing the trend of declining
reimbursement for programs such as the National School Lunch Program
(NSLP). Moreover, because biometric systems automate the
payment and accounting of school lunches, they eliminate tedious
back end administrative chores such as cash, ticket, or paper-based
handling, accounting, reconciling, and oversight.
At first blush, fingerprinting students as a means to improve the efficiency
and speed of school lunch lines often carries the “baggage”
of a host of misconceptions about the technology – not to mention
the privacy implications. For school district personnel, these preconceptions
and considerations may lead to an initial hesitation to investigate
the benefits of such systems. Therefore, this special report
attempts to clear up the myths from the hype, and to provide an accurate
picture of the technology and its potential benefits. This special
report provides information and answers to the following questions:
• A layman’s explanation of biometric technology and privacy issues
• How parents can use such systems to monitor and control where
their child’s lunch money is being spent
