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MARSHALL -- Mark Brodersen and Lori Fruin shared updates regarding Taher Food Service -- a vendor that is celebrating its 30th year of partnership with the district -- to Marshall School Board members at the work session on Monday.
Brodersen, vice president of operations, has been with Taher for 26 years. Fruin, the food service director at Marshall, has been with Taher for 25 years.
"As you know, we recently went through the formal bid process," Brodersen said. "You had much greater competition in terms of looking a the food service program. There are other organizations that value your food service program. We were very fortunate to be the ones that rose to the top. We are certainly grateful for that and take that very seriously. We also realize we still have much to accomplish. We're looking forward to that."
Brodersen said overall, Taher had a good year.
"We met all the changes that were created and some of those things we talked about in a presentation I did about a year ago," he said. "Financially, I think we're in a good spot. It's not about the money, but obviously, it does help because all that money we do generate -- if we do have that -- we reinvest back into the program."
One way Taher reinvests is by buying equipment. The capital equipment improvements during the 2016-17 school year include a mobile full-height cabinet and a two-compartment steamer at Marshall High School, a mobile full-height heated cabinet at Marshall Middle School and a dish machine and a two-compartment steamer at Park Side Elementary.
Brodersen noted that first and foremost, Taher's core purpose is to provide "a solid, nutritious and economical meal for each of the students on a daily breakfast -- that's breakfast and lunch." He added that the food service vendor is a scratch cooking program.
"We do have complex recipes," he said. "We still buy raw ingredients and put them together -- we're not just heating food out of a can, a bag or something like that. The fruit and vegetable bars are still very popular. If you go in all the buildings, you'll see that."
Brodersen said that watermelon was particularly popular on Monday at MMS.
"I think every student that walked by had two or three slices of watermelon on their plate," Brodersen said. "That was kind of fun to watch."
Taher continues to look at what kids want, what meets the regulations and what students will actually be willing to eat, Brodersen said.
"It's a constant challenge for us and so we're looking at some of that," he said.
The newest concept is the addition of a barista -- something similar to what Starbucks and Caribou Coffee offer with "to go" and "for here" options.
"Some people might start to arch their back, wondering why we would bring caffeine into a learning environment, especially since we got rid of the pop." Brodersen said. "But coffee is accepted and kids are already bringing it in. It doesn't mean we should have it just because they bring it in, but it is something we can look at."
MHS has an ideal spot for the barista station and the Ronnoco company would supply the equipment necessary to implement.
Sports meals are another avenue that Taher is pursuing.
"There might be an opportunity for us to provide some type of meal service for student athletes before they leave campus, or if they're on campus, to consume something before going to their competitive environment," Brodersen said. "We do that in other schools with some success. So that's one of the challenges we're looking at this year."
Taher anticipates continuing it's limited time offerings (LTOs) and Harvest of the Month offerings.
"LTOs are brand new recipes we would create that have been analyzed for nutritional content, meet the regulations that we're currently obligated to serve within and would be something we'd bring in and then it disappears," Brodersen said. "We could bring it back at some later date if it's very popular, but it just gives kids kind of another experience, if you will."
In September, students had the opportunity to try Texas rub chicken sandwiches. A Korean beef bulgogi quesadilla will be highlighted in October.
For Harvest of the Month, one fruit, one vegetable and either a grain, legume, spice or herb is featured on the menu. Educational flyers on each item provide nutritional facts as well as cultural and historical data.
"We talked about adding some fun facts so students can go up and look at it and get some information from those," Brodersen said. "We've found that's been very successful."
During the presentation, charts showing four-year comparisons were shown. The district-wide average for daily breakfasts has steadily increased. The district served an average 218 breakfast meals a day in 2013-14, 292 in 2014-15, 363 in 2015-16 and 478 this past school year.
"Since 2013, there's been a steady rise in breakfast meals, which I think is really important," Brodersen said. "It's helping and kids like it, so I think we're off to a good start."
The district-wide average daily student lunches -- including paid, free and reduced -- increased from the 2013-14 year (1,734 lunches) and 2014-15 year (1,717), but dropped slightly from 2015-16 (1,906). A daily average of 1,862 lunches were served last year.
"It can be because of a function of enrollment or participation in a la carte," Brodersen said. "There's a lot of things that can go into that. But you can see that we're still trending in a positive way."
A la carte sales averaged $926.23 a day during the 2016-17 school year. The total is down from a year prior ($1,035.07) and from 2013-14 ($1,154.94), but up from 2014-15 ($868.65).
"It's bounced around the last three years and a number of things contribute to that," Brodersen said. "The regulations went into effect for a la carte for the year 2014-15 and it dramatically dropped because we struggled to get some a la carte items that would fit within the new regulations. Then we recovered from that, so why did it drop again this last year? I think it's because a lot of kids focused on the main meals."
When analyzing total meals, the trend shows steady, upward growth. The district served an average daily meal total of 2,925 last year, compared to 2,533 in 2013-14 and 2,570 and 2,827 the next two years.
"When you take all of the meals, as a program, the trend line is moving upward fairly well," Brodersen said.