CSR Tours Food Service Facility

We had a great meeting today with Food Service Executive Director Leslie Fowler, who gave us a tour of the District's Food Service facilities. She showed us some of the improvements and changes that they are preparing for the upcoming school year, and shared some potential menu changes. One equipment upgrade will allow the district to prepare pasta and rice. Another involves changing the type of plastic packaging so that the pizza won't be so soggy and the buns for hot sandwiches won't be so hard. They are also going to be trying to provide cut fruit like melons as well as grapes.

We then adjoined to a conference room to preview some menu changes and discuss results of our food service surveys. Ms. Fowler would like to have us back to follow up on today's meeting and to get our feedback on the new initiatives that we'll see in the fall.

Anyone can add their comments to this posting, so if you want to chime in with your thoughts about the meeting or provide some feedback/suggestions, please do so!

Here are some more detailed notes, courtesy of Betsy F.:

Notes from CSR meeting with Leslie Fowler, Food Service Director for RCSD with Aramark

Food suppliers are Sysco and USDA (US dept of agriculture), dairy from Upstate Farms

They serve 36,000 meals a day in the RCSD.

We viewed store room, refrigerated room and freezer room (USDA chicken patties, nuggets, burgers, etc.)

The prep room told a lot of the story of their inability to provide fresh foods: there are no sinks, no temperature control in the room, no refrigerators or ovens. They can’t wash whole fruit since they don’t have the facility, so you only get whole fruit like oranges or bananas where you don’t eat the skin or that has been prewashed (apples). They do prep (cut) celery sticks that must be prewashed.

School 33 has wash sinks, but the Health Dept hasn’t given them permission to use them.

Packaging/assembly line: They have improved the process by having employees fill the trays at tables and then put them on assembly line for overwrap covering. They can “produce” more items and more complex items, such as meatball sub: meatball, sauce, cheese, and bread. The meatballs are premade and precooked when they arrive at food service frozen. They are assembled and they get to the school thawed and then are reheated at the schools.

Rice and pasta cooking kettles are 40 years old and don’t work/don’t regulate. They will be updated so they are temperature controlled/all electronic. There will also be cook chillers to cool foods down to the appropriate temperature for safety. Now they will be able to boil chicken and use seasoning bags to provide different flavorings. They will have an executive chef working with them while they are getting the updated equipment online. The upgrade should be done by Aug 16, then they will train their staff and be ready to use on Sept 2. They will also be training the staff at schools so that they don’t recook the food, only reheat it. They will also have a heat seal machine which allows them to cover only the top and they can have different compartments. Leslie wants us to revisit when the equipment is up. It will allow them to have fresh fruit like cantaloupe and honeydew, grapes, and mixed fruit in a heat sealed container. It comes to them already cut. They will also be able to do things like pepper rings and zucchini/squash sticks.

Pack out room: Food is packed on one day, delivered the next day and served the following day or next. Monday’s food is packed on Friday. So food they serve has to be able to hold. Part of this is due to number of trucks they have.

We asked about lowering sugar content of breakfast items. She said the sugar content is looked at over a week’s worth of meals—that they are not providing food with too much sugar. Also said if they cut the sugar content, they wouldn’t meet the calorie count they need (you heard it here). Can’t switch from Sysco supplied Trix yogurt from something less sugary made by Upstate, for example, because Upstate doesn’t make the quantity or size/packaging they require.

We need to find out where CSR is on the list of schools that will eventually get school kitchens.

Parents please contact Leslie with feedback. The website (there’s a link from the District website) is interactive. If children don’t like food, what do they want instead—she wants input. We reviewed sample menus and made suggestions. Telesta asked not to have all sandwich items on one day so those who don’t eat bread would have some option.

Need parent involvement on an “operations specialty team” focused on the food service in the district. They would like a parent from each school on the team.

They are willing to come out to schools and do education and taste testing. We need to invite them. We could do with student council group or in Health and Wellness classes. They had a educational character last year ACE that was underutilized.

USDA doesn’t recognize vegetarianism as healthful diet, don’t recognize tofu as an alternative. Food service will add legumes and try to produce themselves instead of always having canned beans: red beans, black beans, hummus. There is always a vegetarian option, but the school cashier needs to order it. May do cheese quesadilla on alternating Fridays with pizza.

New wrap has micro-perforations to let steam out so pizza won’t be as mushy, but chicken patty will still be moist. Can’t find non-pork pepperoni for pizza.

Maybe we can get an exemption so that they can make more rice for our school. USDA does only brown rice. Only noodles available are spaghetti and rotini. Can not do oatmeal because it will reheat to a cement like texture and lunch rooms don’t have microwaves to do instant kind. They will be testing macaroni and cheese with whole wheat rotini.

Schools can have gardens, but can’t bring that food into the cafeteria.

Leslie recommends joining in on Mrs. Obama’s health initiatives and writing to legislators.

Applications for free/reduced school meals need to be in by Sept 30 or student families will be billed for meals!