As an example, Ronnei cites a recently qualified dish, Chicken Suqaar, a Somali specialty consisting of chicken sautéed with cilantro, garlic, carrots, green pepper and onion that is usually served with vegetable rice. “It was one of the more challenging dishes,” she notes.

In this case, four Somali parents went to Purchasing Analyst Jim Groskopf's house, where they tried different ways to make it to put together a workable recipe. Groskopf's knowledge of how different ingredients can be procured was a key component in devising a viable formulation.

Obviously, a Somali dish with a distinct flavor profile is not necessarily going to get mass appeal, but that's okay, Ronnei insists.

“Participation can't be the only driver,” she emphasizes. “It can't be the only reason you put something on the menu. If all your program is about is driving participation, then you'll cut off opportunities for creativity and variety. You'll be missing the boat on exposing kids to new and different foods and teaching them values about food.”

A somewhat exotically flavored dish made with lower-food-cost ingredients may still be able to hold up its financial end in the menu mix even if it is not the most popular item on the menu, she says, while giving students an opportunity to broaden their culinary horizons.

“I think there is a huge amount of pride among my staff about how we care about health and variety, and I think that shows through to the kids,” Ronnei says proudly.

Tackling Breakfast

To counter lagging breakfast participation numbers, SPPS last year introduced Breakfast 2 Go (B2G), which gets meals packaged for convenient, mess-free takeout into students' hands so they can eat in the classroom.

Originally implemented among schools that voluntarily embraced the program in order to get as many up and running as possible, B2G is now targeted to be in all schools that offer Provision II breakfast by next January. In its first phase, it had built morning meal participation by about two-thirds in the nearly two dozen schools where it had been implemented.

B2G is only one of several meal program innovations and extensions SPPS has tried. It also offers an afterschool snack program of two components (typically a milk and a scratch-made whole grain item) for students under 18, day care meals (formula and baby food or toddler meals using the National School Breakfast/Lunch Program) for student parents who wish to continue attending classes, and the USDA Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, which provides fresh fruit/vegetable snacks in the classrooms of 18 elementary schools with over 50 percent free/reduced populations.

Another success has been Good to Go, a station concept for high schools designed to reduce a la carte offerings and increase reimbursable meal sales.

“We wanted to migrate the burgers and so forth that were popular as a la carte selections to the reimbursable lunch line so students would also get the fresh produce and milk with the burgers,” Ronnei explains.

“As we were reducing a la carte, we looked for selections we put in that space that would be reimbursable. Our focus groups told us that the kids liked restaurants like Panera and Chipotle, so we created recipes based on choices from those kinds of places but which would fit our nutritional profile.

The most recent initiative is the Expanded Choice bar, rolled out in May. The original Choice Bars menu had featured colorful salad greens, fruits and fresh vegetables. It has now been expanded to include vegetarian protein items such as cottage cheese, chopped hard-boiled eggs and bean and whole grain pasta salads to encourage students to eat more of these healthful items.

Serving as an addition (not an alternative) to the regular menu choices, the bars give students the chance to pack their plates as much as they want, but do it with healthy non-meat proteins that reduce overall food costs.

“Meanwhile, they give kids exposure to different products while giving the adults in the building a salad bar option that includes proteins, something they didn't have before,” Ronnei says. “In that way, we're marketing ourselves to the adults in the building as well as to parents, who get the monthly menu that shows how we're all about nutrition and the health of their children. So when they make a choice about their child's lunch, we hope they choose us over the brown bag.”

Active in the Industry

SPPS has also been an active participant in School Food Focus (SFF), a national initiative composed of the country's 21 largest school districts that seeks to develop more healthful, sustainably produced and regionally sourced food. The district served as the first pilot site for SFF's Learning Lab program, which teamed SPPS nutrition professionals with outside consultants to develop effective procurement and operations practices to enhance the content of district meals.

Among the results were agreements with suppliers that brought SPPS flavored milks with lower sugar content, whole wheat hamburger and hot dog buns, unbreaded/bone-in chicken drumsticks and more locally grown fresh produce like apples, broccoli, cucumbers, onions and watermelon among more than a dozen different fruits and vegetables.

The local purchases in the first two months of the past school year (when the local growing season was at its height) totaled over 100,000 lbs. of product, accounting for more than half of the district's produce purchases within that time period.

The initiative will also bring innovative new dishes to the menu this fall, such as a Buffalo and Wild Rice Casserole. Developed in cooperation with the American Indian Education Program, it features ground bison sourced from Minnesota ranches and locally harvested wild rice.

Like everything else SPPS tries, the new dishes may or may not be widely accepted, but the point is to keep pushing the envelope. The healthy food message, like the welcoming atmosphere in the cafeterias, the customer-friendly touches and all the marketing materials promoting the department and its message, are meant to change minds and attitudes incrementally.

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