Over the years, new additions and changes have been made to our school’s food service. Most prominently, a year and a half ago our school district ended its contract with the food company, Aramark. The district wanted to localize its food operations, hiring the now Food Service Director, Stuart Anstead; whose goal was to make the change to self-operate.
Aramark as a company was not operating in the interest of the school and the students, but rather in the interest of profit, leaving many of the kitchen equipment outdated, and using additives and artificial ingredients in the food to minimize costs at the expense of quality; for example, the old meat consisted of soy and an assortment of other meats. Since the induction of Mr. Anstead and his new goals of self operation and improvement of quality, the food has drastically changed. The chicken and beef, now having drastically less chemicals, with a far better quality. Mr. Anstead says, “I try to keep the chemicals under control.” Mr. Anstead continues, “Everything is analyzed.” To ensure that each food is up to federal standards, while keeping each item distinct and consistent. One of Mr. Anstead’s greatest achievements is keeping the price of lunch at $3.30 for the past 4 years, not changing it even if quality is rising; he says, “I’m not about making money.”
Moreover, this year a new addition was made by our Food Director, Mr. Anstead. The introduction of a new lunch rotation system, that is on a week-by-week basis, instead of a daily special. The rotation follows a pattern, with the most popular by far being the walking tacos. New changes to the rotation are expected in the coming semester, like the popular oriental chicken, served with rice and teriyaki sauce. You can view the weekly menu with all nutritional and allergy information on myschoolmenus.com. My School Menus displays everything served, down to the condiments and the specifics per day, you can even filter by allergens.
Another new addition this year, is the complete renovation of the pizza served in the cafeteria. Changing brands to Smart Mouth, a pizza brand aimed at schools and commercial grocery stores. Tracy Wright, a food director that employs this brand at her schools, says, “All the recipes from Smart Mouth are in compliance with federal nutritional values. Each pizza has a whole grain honey wheat flour crust that meets federal whole grain requirements.” For now, students can choose between pepperoni, cheese, Italian combo, and
hot wing pizzas. The pizzas are pre-ordered and cooked on site, using a new generation type of commercial oven, that functions similarly to modern air fryers, an exciting new type of technology right in our school; improving the quality of the pizzas served here. Mr. Anstead says, “Most people think buying out makes it lose quality but that’s not the case” Even though the pizza is pre-ordered, it does everything but lose quality, having the pizza shipped from smart mouth, improves consistency, allowing more bang for your buck.
