Serving Meals In The Classroom

Many schools across the country began the 2021/22 academic year with students back on campus. However, the rise of the Delta variant has introduced uncertainties regarding how schools should proceed, particularly concerning meal service and maintaining social distancing protocols. In discussions with our clients, we've learned that numerous K-12 schools are implementing strategies to serve meals directly in the classroom. A quick online search of educational and foodservice-related publications confirms this trend, highlighting that many districts are addressing these challenges without a definitive best practice established. This guide aims to walk you through key considerations and offer practical tips to help you get started. Before initiating a meals-in-the-classroom program, it's advantageous to engage everyone involved in the process or its outcomes. This could include teachers, custodial staff, administrators, volunteers, parents, and even students. Teachers and custodial staff can provide valuable insights into what resources they’ll need for the system to function effectively. Student or parent input on menu ideas or adjustments to traditional offerings can also be beneficial. Feedback can be gathered through various methods such as social media surveys, tools like SurveyMonkey, or virtual platforms like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet. The first step in implementing a meal delivery plan involves assessing your equipment requirements. Depending on the size of your campus and the number of students, a critical consideration is the transport equipment necessary to move meals from the kitchen to the classroom. This includes items like rolling coolers, insulated transport bags, food storage bins, and carts to transport meals, drinks, trays, or serving supplies. Inside the classroom, you'll need placemats for each desk or meal trays/containers, waste receptacles for meal-related trash, hand sanitization and cleaning supplies for students and teachers, and equipment or supplies for classroom staff to track meals. A point-of-sale (POS) system can assist in tracking student participation for reimbursement purposes. When it comes to equipment, start by utilizing what you already have and repurposing it to serve meals in the classroom. Repurposing existing equipment is both cost-effective and avoids long lead times. Consider reviewing your carts and repurposing them: convert salad bars into grab-and-go kiosks or use food storage carts. Use pans as shelves in existing pan racks and turn them into transport carts for trays or bagged lunches. Utility carts can carry prepackaged meals or hot foods in insulated carriers along with beverages in crates. Think outside the box: rolling ice caddies and mobile milk boxes can also be used to transport meals. Smaller or seldom-used refrigerators can temporarily serve as meal storage. Ice cream freezers can keep milk or other beverages cold. Milk dollies can be used to transport meals or supplies to the classroom. Mobilize: Adding casters to stationary racks, shelving units, or milk crates allows these items to be used for meal transport. Innovate with inexpensive items: need a divider between lines? Find a way to hang a shower curtain instead of purchasing a plexiglass divider. Grab the moving dollies from maintenance and use them to easily move crates that are too heavy to carry. For any unmet transportation needs, collaborate with your Foodservice Equipment and Supply Dealer to identify the best equipment solutions and sources to complete your system. Creating a Grab-and-Go station can make meal serving quick and efficient. With Grab-and-Go, students pick up prepackaged meals at a set location in a common area like a food cart located in the school cafeteria. For breakfast service in the classroom, it can be efficient to set up the grab-and-go meals near the school entrance. Students take a meal as they walk in and can have their meal once they are settled in their classroom. Grab-and-Go stations can also work well for older children who change classrooms before and/or after lunch. Reusable to-go containers, like MyGo Containers™, can be used to package meals for pickup and will reduce the amount of non-food waste created by single-use foam or paper containers. These containers reduce costs from disposable to-go containers and improve functionality. Remember to include setting up extra trash receptacles in the classroom to make waste collection easier when serving children in class. If you opt for reusable containers like MyGo Containers, you can add a collection receptacle for students to place their MyGo in when finished with the meal. You can also set up a POS system at a kiosk asking students to swipe their ID as they pick up a meal. It’s important to find a touchless tracking method that works for your operation. Depending on the sophistication of your technology department, some schools have implemented an app for ordering meals that are picked up at designated pick-up locations. These locations can be as simple as a rack with tagged meal spaces. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is also crucial to ensure a safe meal delivery program. Recommended PPE includes face masks or face shields, hand sanitizer stands or stations, signage to reinforce social distancing and safety guidelines, barriers/dividers, and social distancing floor signage or markers. Packaging is vital to ensure the safety of students. Some of the different equipment that can help include bag sealers and temperature-resistant bags, packing equipment, disposable items like paper plates and utensils, and to-go containers—either reusable or disposable. Individually packaged items and meals are quickly becoming the standard. Equipment can be purchased new or used/refurbished at a reduced price. The cost to operate and any supplies will vary from model to model. Sealing equipment requires supplies for each seal, and this expense needs to be included in your budgeting. Single-use containers like foam or paper to-go containers need to be purchased frequently due to the space they require to store. Additionally, you may need to plan for increased trash removal expenses or more frequent pickups due to the additional trash generated by these containers. Using a bulk milk dispenser with reusable beverage containers can be a cost-effective option compared to the more traditional single-serving milk cartons. It reduces non-food waste and limits waste from any containers that were only partially consumed. Reusable to-go containers can reduce non-food waste and provide a better meal experience. The MyGo Containers™ have food compartments that are fully separated and a leak-resistant lid with a gasketed seal. When serving hot foods, these containers hold heat longer than traditional disposable containers, and foods don’t mix during transport. They last for over 1,000 washes through a dish machine, making them less expensive than disposables over time. Be sure to review your district’s purchasing policy. You may be able to purchase equipment in bulk to be used by multiple schools or classrooms, thus getting better pricing. Look for alternative sources of revenue like grants or budget dollars allocated for sustainability initiatives. Implementing reusable to-go containers instead of foam or paper disposable containers may qualify for budget dollars allocated for sustainability initiatives because these products reduce waste. There are also government grants available. After meals are served, returning all supplies and cleaning up is essential. For any reusable beverage or food containers, washing and drying time needs to be considered. If you're serving breakfast and lunch, you may need a second set of containers if there isn't adequate drying time between meals. Since plastic doesn’t dry quickly, areas need to be established for any needed drying racks, which can also be used to store containers when not in use. All supplies can be collected and returned to the centralized kitchen area using the same transportation method utilized for delivery. Ready to get started? Here are a few questions that will help you begin: 1. How many meals will you be serving in the classroom? 2. Is this breakfast, lunch, or both? 3. Will your menu include hot food? 4. What serving solution best fits your menu? (paper plates, sack lunch, to-go container) 5. Do you need to transport meals to multiple campuses? 6. Are students able to pick up meals at a kiosk or will you deliver meals to the classroom? 7. Will you need to prepare meals for students that are remote? 8. What staffing changes will be needed to transition from cafeteria-style to classroom meal delivery? 9. Where will you store transport equipment when not in use? 10. Are there changes to your warewashing equipment needed? We’ve worked with several colleges and universities as well as K-12 schools to outfit their foodservice operations to meet the demands of classroom and remote meals as well as socially distanced meal service. If you have questions or need assistance in launching a classroom meal program at your school, you can call Jessica Gomez, our campus dining expert at 630-821-0244 or reach out via email () and we can help you design and equip an efficient and successful program.