The School Nutrition Program (SNP) is a complex business operation. Schools across the nation strive to provide nutritious, tasty, quality meals to students while being cost effective. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is dedicated to ensuring successful procurement …
Sharing the Credit: Acknowledging Food Service Staff for Implementing Positive Changes
Lunchroom workers are the face of the school meals program. Accordingly, when interventions are successful in the lunchroom, it is important to give credit where credit is due. By recognizing your team’s efforts to improve student participation, increase selection and …
Decisions, Decisions: Behavioral Economics in the Lunchroom
Cornell University’s Smarter Lunchrooms Movement works to apply principles from behavioral economics to school lunchroom environments. Because individuals, including students, are influenced by their surroundings, behavioral theory can be applied to encourage healthier behaviors even in school lunchrooms.
Research in
Benefits of Working with Cooperative Extension
Consider calling your local county or university based Cooperative Extension office for reliable, research based resources and strategies to assist you in your plans to create a healthy school environment. It could be your one-stop for working on improving healthy …
Benefits of a Multiple School Workgroup and How to Start One
Food Service Directors (FSD) can be lone rangers in their individual school districts. The autonomy can be satisfying but the work can sometimes be isolating. Many district food service directors have organized themselves at the city, county, regional or national …
Generating Buy-In From School Administration Officials
While most members of the school community are generally in favor of changes that can improve the school environment for students, one of the challenges that sometimes crops up when a Smarter Lunchroom Makeover is proposed is resistance from the …
The Frazer Eagle Café- Smarter Lunchroom Makeover Soars in Syracuse
It’s a bird, it’s a plane- no, it’s the Frazer Eagle Café! – the first of its kind in the 28-building urban district- and its kids are soaring over the awesome new “café”. Colorful, healthy food and activity choice “artwork” …
Testimonials from School Food Service Professionals: Creation of the Frazer Eagle Café
Annette Marchbanks: Assistant School Food Service Director- Syracuse City School District
“Students need to be exposed to a variety of healthful foods to encourage them to try them and help them to realize that they like them. Hopefully, this will …
Increase the Number of Students that Select Reimbursable Meals
During a busy lunch period, time is students’ most valuable commodity and they will often grab a snack or skip lunch altogether rather than wait in a long line for a full meal, even when they are hungry! Worse, over …