Article contributed by Brigitte Rounds, Advantage Marketing
New York City Schools and schools across the Metro New York area recently got the approval to reopen their schools with various and creative approaches for both their educational and student feeding programs.
Among the many real heroes working to get schools open and operational are the school food service directors and their dedicated staff in the cafeterias. These are the unsung heroes who have been working tirelessly for the past several months to provide nourishment to their students and in many cases, entire communities. From the tip of Long Island, through the 5 boroughs of New York City, into New Jersey and beyond, local schools became hubs for creating healthy meal kits that could be brought home to feed entire families during the shutdown caused by Covid-19. Now these valued essential workers begin a new school year facing equally difficult challenges.
Back to School opening dates this fall have been staggered throughout September and now into October, depending on the decisions made by individual superintendent and local school boards. So, while Paterson and Elizabeth in New Jersey have yet to reopen for on site learning, there are many districts that have schools and kitchens returning to hybrid programs and full-scale operations. These various models of education combined with the fear of future shut downs, have not been easy on the food service directors or the distributors that provide food and paper products. How does one plan for the unknown? It has been interesting to watch various school food service teams work around in-class and home/hybrid learning schedules to come up with a food service plan. In many cases, in addition to offering parents meals to pick up at selected school sites, the solution is to send students home with enough breakfast and lunch meals that they may eat during the two or three days when studying at home.
Pre-Covid shutdown of schools, school food service directors would start the new school year and purchase products in mid-August from their food service distributors following their bid process for food procurement. The anticipated volume they purchase now has been reported at less than 15% of their normal volume and many of the smaller districts are having a difficult time meeting required minimums for distributor delivery. The daily student population eating in school or picking up meals to eat at home in a remote setting is not even close to the average number as in previous years. Distributors, still with warehouses full of frozen food that districts cannot use until programs are fully functional, are reluctant to purchase awarded bid items at manufacturer minimums until an actual purchase order is placed by the school.
In some cases, directors believe that if a distributor is awarded a bid item – the school may purchase it at any time with a few days lead time. A bid is a request for pricing, not a commitment to order. It is an estimate or barometer for products anticipated for purchase during the school year. 2020 has been anything but normal. Schools are changing to alternate items that may not have been bid originally and shortages of products due to breaks in production and supply chain are common. Careful monthly menu planning, direct communication with distributors and actual purchase order placement with a three-week lead time will allow both the schools and their distributor partners to work together to ensure product availability or at the least, pivot to alternate menu options.
Another challenge facing school food service directors are the heavy inventories of frozen food remaining from the Spring semester when the schools were shut down. Many of the meals currently being offered since March and possibly until December, are prepared with thaw & serve or shelf stable products as many kitchens are not open for hot meal service.
The challenge for the school food service professionals throughout the market is how to creatively use these frozen products to assemble quick service Grab-n’-Go meals in limited operational facilities and even how to offer frozen take-home items to serve their students and communities.
Our role as a foodservice broker representative is to guide and assist food service directors with product purchasing decisions and to align their districts with the distributors that service them with high-quality products from the manufacturers we proudly represent. This year has been very different than previous years. We have been a constant conduit of information as directors search for product solutions to their ever-changing program needs. We’ve been extremely busy trying to answer a lot of questions offer menu options for school meals. What products are available? What do you have? What’s easily accessible? What can manufacturers produce? What can you guarantee? How quickly can we get product that we need? There is a continuous flow of product specifications and information as well as flyers and photos for potential menu items. Getting a firm commitment for orders from schools to communicate to distributors is the challenge as directors are hesitant to purchase more items with the high inventory of products still remaining in their freezers. They need to purchase very different products to meet their new needs, but also need to try and use the products in storage, a difficult balance to say the least.
As schools pivot from using their inventories of frozen food for hot meal preparation, we are seeing the focus moving to purchase more shelf stable and individually wrapped frozen and refrigerated products for ease of preparation, especially for take home meal kits. It is amazing how a simple thing like changing from bulk product to individually wrapped items or adding heating instructions to a wrapped frozen product makes a significant difference in operating efficiency, practicing social distancing, food safety and grab and go meal preparation. We are seeing a number of districts submitting addendums to bids to include pre-wrapped items. Keep in mind that many schools had already completed their bidding process for the 2020-21 school year before COVID hit. The need to add a variety of new menu options to their bid, prewrapped and grab & go, has become a priority.
Several of our manufacturers offer products that fit these new needs perfectly. Schwan’s Food Service now provides full heating instructions for every bulk item. This enables schools to use their frozen products in inventory for a take home meal. They simply copy the instructions onto a sticker or insert into meal kit for safe heating at home. The popular Schwan’s Tony’s bulk Galaxy Pizza is offered in an individual wrapped colorful “heat in bag” film with printed preparation instructions. Jennie-O Turkey Store offers a pre-wrapped turkey breast stick that has a smokey barbecue flavor and when matched with J&J Snack Foods new line of healthy two grain oz Crunch & Crave Savory Crackers, schools can create a delicious thaw and serve grab-’n-go lunch kit. Global Food Solutions is offering fully assembled Power Up brand breakfast and lunch kits which make in-classroom and take-home feeding simple. In addition to their line of delicious, wrapped whole grain breakfast products, Hadley Farms has a pre-sliced, flakey, whole grain croissant that may be paired with Jennie-O’s pre-sliced turkey products for districts to offer a great tasting, bistro style sandwich to their students.
Whether the districts are providing meals in cafeterias, in classrooms, with grab and go kits or take-home food packaging, our goal is to help ease directors’ burdens and provide products that fit their needs in these challenging times with safe, healthy and student acceptable meals that are easy to prepare. By working together with districts on menu planning, lead time and committed orders, and with clear communication to distributor and manufacturing partners, we are here to help ensure these new products are ready and available when needed.
Once again, we offer our sincere thanks to the dedicated school food service directors, management and staff that have been pushed to unbelievable levels of expectation. School foodservice directors are torn between answering the demands of their superintendents and school boards and how to turn on a dime to open their facilities to welcome back students and faculty in a very different environment and service capacity. They are the true heroes of the food service industry who come in day in and day out to work behind the scenes to feed our children and families, and for whom we are most grateful.
Brigitte Rounds is the Vice President at Advantage Marketing, one of the oldest and most seasoned food service brokerage firms in Metro New York/New Jersey marketing area and the nation. Navigating the food brokerage landscape in a world in which most independent brokers have been acquired by large national firms is truly a unique accomplishment. Advantage Marketing opened its doors in 1974 as the first independent foodservice brokerage firm in the Metro area. Up until then, the foodservice brokerage industry was generally a small division and afterthought of grocery and supermarket retail brokers.
