What’s for Dinner School District Cafeteria Food

Parents are working split-shifts, early mornings, evenings, and nights to keep the bills paid and a roof over the head and more and more school kids are left fending for themselves according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. 

Non-traditional fresh food retailers are driving change in meal and menu options within the Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat Grocerant niche according to Johnson.

One school district in Indiana has found a way to help parents and kids get a balanced meal on the table for dinner. WSBT first reported that Elkhart Community Schools students usually get breakfast and lunch at school, but on the weekends at home, they may be without food.

That's where the South Bend-based non-profit Cultivate comes in: it provides weekend meals to a small group of students in the elementary school pilot program.  Cultivates Jim Conklin stated “Mostly, we rescue food that’s been made but never served by catering companies, large food service businesses, like the school system," .. "You don't always think of a school." Simply put “It rescues the unused food.”

“Over-preparing is just part of what happens," said Conklin. "We take well-prepared food, combine it with other food and make individual frozen meals out if it." Twenty students will receive a backpack with eight individual frozen meals every Friday until the end of school.

Natalie Bickel, student services at Elkhart Community Schools stated, “we were wasting a lot of food,"  "There wasn't anything to do with the food. So they came to the school three times a week and rescued the food."

The Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Academy Commerce helped get the pilot program going. “It’s making a big impact,” said Melissa Ramey, Chamber Leadership Academy. “I am proud of that. It was heartbreaking to hear that children go home on the weekends and that they don't have anything to eat.”

It's making a big difference in the lives of the students receiving the meals. The Elkhart school system wants to expand the food program to other schools.  How are you fighting food waste? 

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.

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