The most recent school board meeting on March 10 ended with a detailed explanation of how lunches and nutrition will be handled in the upcoming spring if Genuine Foods, a quality-focused food service company that provides scratch-made meals to school systems, is approved by the board.
Tim Waldsmith, the senior vice president of Genuine Foods, highlighted the company’s encouragement of participation from people in the community during the meeting.
“We listen and we engage with students, with faculty, with parents, and members of the community,” Waldsmith said to the board. “We believe in surveying, engaging, and making sure that the students have a voice in what’s going on [their] plate.”
Waldsmith touched on the lack of student input in the current system, and described their company’s main ways of targeting the lack of participation through constant surveying and reforms. “We work very closely with the team and the staff to make sure that we’re constantly addressing any menu changes and putting items forward that are both healthy, scratch cooked, and acceptable to the student pallet,” Waldsmith said.
One of the key distinctions between the current food vendor and Genuine Foods would be their commitment to fresh produce and local market support. Their dedication to training and developing staff to be able to prepare and cook the food from scratch through instructional cooking techniques, knife handling skills, and storage and organization is a point of pride for the company.
“We believe purchasing locally within a 200 mile radius from farms is key to success… fresh fruits and vegetables,” Waldsmith said. “15% of our purchases are going to come from local direct farms… 95% of the menu items are scratch cooked.”
Jen Callaway, a chief program officer for Genuine Foods, explained how the program would help the schools and students. “We’re not going to get it 100% right the first time, but because we’re going to have those feedback loops in place.” Adding, “We will be able to quickly adjust and continuously improve and refine the program so that it reflects what you guys really want and what you’re going to eat.”
Callaway emphasizes the importance of students’ input, saying, “I think the most important thing about any school food program is to make sure that the students feel heard.”
Although no confirmation on the approval of Genuine Foods being a vendor has been made, the district website posted this in January, “[GAPS] made a determination that it will enter into a contract for food service management using a noncompetitive procurement method for one year.”