While it takes more planning to get food onto students’ trays, local schools say creativity and foresight have prevented disruption to lunchtime despite supply chain backups.
In Kelso, Nutrition Services Supervisor Kaydee Harris said paper goods are the hardest thing to come by.
“Our biggest continued struggle has been paper goods which we serve our food on/in,” she said. “We’ve had to source items from online vendors and get creative how we serve things.”
Serving items could be a problem in Woodland moving into the new year, Woodland Business Manager Stacy Brown said, like the entrée serving trays called boats.
As for food items, Kelso’s Harris said the district was able to get and store many things over the summer and so far has “been able to hold our menu close to our planned cycle.” School districts have to follow strict federal nutritional guidelines and typically plan menus out far in advance.
“Most importantly it hasn’t impacted the quality of meals we are serving,” Harris said. “We’ve had to get creative on many occasions, such as making our own pizzas when we cannot source our typical ones, but our staff have been all-stars at being flexible with changes and students are receptive.”
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In Castle Rock, Superintendent Ryan Greene said while the district usually orders food every two weeks, they’re trying to stock up on items and take advantage of the school’s ample freezer space.
“You have items that you think should be here, but they’re not,” he said. “But our food service staff is phenomenal and they make do and prepare the best possible food for our students.”
The biggest problem is making sure there’s a consistent amount of items that expire rapidly, like milk and dairy, Greene said, because “when you order sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t.”
Woodland has had to make some menu changes at the last minute, Brown said, but has not had major problems with putting lunches together.
“We have had some bumps, but nothing too bad,” she said.
Kalama director of dining services Kevin Baker said while he’s been experiencing shortages for several months, they’re becoming easier to predict.
“What used to be a 50% outage is now in the 20% range per week,” he said. “The big issues are paper supplies and cheese is hard to find. It could be better, but this current situation is livable.”
Longview spokesman Rick Parrish said he had not heard of any significant disruption or delay.
Greene said he tells families and staff this is not a problem specific to Castle Rock, but something the whole state and likely country is facing. It’s combined with a shortage of nutrition staff, Greene said. Earlier in the school year a Castle Rock lunch of a hamburger bun with cheese and bacon called a “cheesy dream” circulated on social media and drew ire from parents. Greene said staff was short at the start of the year which required creativity, but more nutritional staff have been hired since then.
Kelso’s Harris said “all in all, it’s a struggle that we deal with monthly, weekly, and daily, but we are working hard with our vendors to plan as far in advance as I can so we are able to get the product we need in.”
