Ongoing global supply chain issues, spurred by the pandemic, are presenting big challenges for nutrition services at Meriden Public Schools.
Coming up with creative ways to manage the situation is now a regular part of the daily routine required to feed the district’s more than 8,500 students. Counting breakfasts and lunches, staff serve at least 10,000 meals a day. Counting all summer and winter meal programs, the total is about 1.5 million meals a year.
Shortages are occurring in many standard school lunch foods and items; chicken nuggets, egg patties, milk and even cardboard trays. Hamburger patties, lactose-free milk, potatoes and cereal have gotten scarce, too. Menus can change quickly due to unavailable items.
The shortages make long-term menu planning a challenge. Previously, menus were planned for the month, now it’s a weekly task.
“You get what you can. And you try to make the best of it and definitely sell it to the kids,” Jenn Koss, a nutrition services staff member at John Barry Elementary School, said in an interview with Record-Journal reporter Michael Gagne.
District leaders don’t expect the situation to change any time soon. Food supply issues have been compounded by other problems, including delivery driver shortages and staffing shortages at distribution facilities. The time needed to get food shipped from warehouses and delivered is as much as eight to 10 weeks.
“I thought last year was going to be the worst year that we were going to have. But right now, they’re predicting possibly another two years,” said Susan Maffe, director of food and nutrition services for the Meriden Public Schools. “It’s continual crisis management.”
She and her staff are seeking solutions — including renting a frozen food trailer for additional storage capacity. “We’re constantly planning ahead with how we’re going to be able to keep operations going, with the problem continuing to get worse,” Maffe said.
Superintendent of Schools Mark D. Benigni praised the food service staff as well as students and families for understanding that “we’re doing our best.”
Districts with large populations of low income families like Meriden have long been eligible to serve universal free meals through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Community Eligibility Provision. Last year, the USDA granted a waiver so that all school districts would be able to serve meals free of charge. The agency expanded that waiver to include this year as well.
Nutrition services staff said they take the challenges in stride and continue to enjoy day-to-day interactions with students and co-workers, calling the job rewarding.
Board of Education President Robert Kosienski Jr. described their daily efforts as “Herculean.”
Supply chain problems are now familiar to every household, store shelves are often depleted of everyday items we expect to find. Handling this situation on the scale the schools are facing is difficult to imagine. Yet staff pulls together a plan to feed thousands of students each day, some of whom depend on the schools as their primary source for meals.
The nutrition services staff is keeping a positive attitude and taking a flexible, creative approach to get the job done. Those are the right ingredients for successfully navigating through this lingering state of affairs.
