Dexter Food & Nutrition Director Jennifer Mattison shares how school meals are created.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy created National School Lunch Week (NSLW) to “promote the importance of a healthy school lunch in a child’s life and the impact it has inside and outside of the classroom.” The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) serves nearly 30 million children every school day (schoolnutrition.org).
At Dexter Community Schools, the Food & Nutrition team served 337,223 lunches and 108,288 breakfasts during the 2023-2024 school year. With hundreds of thousands of meals served throughout the year, have you ever stopped to think how F&N staff go about planning and preparing your child’s meals? Director Jennifer Mattison gives us the “dish” on their process.
As one might guess, Mattison and her Assistant Director Roxanne Maze-Frick first and foremost follow the strict guidelines set forth by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA requires school menus to be nutritionally balanced and well-rounded, as well as age-appropriate. If you are ever in the mood for a little light reading, the USDA Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs is an eighty-page document filled with nutrition charts, food costs, and meal requirements for infants through 12th grade students.
These details are second nature to Mattison and Maze-Frick, who have worked in school district food & nutrition for many years (both are around the ten-year service mark at DCS). After meeting USDA guidelines, the next important consideration is student preferences. The F&N team taste test each item that is served; f they don’t like it, they won’t serve it to students.
To illustrate this, Mattison detailed the process of selecting a pizza sauce. If a particular pizza sauce tastes great but is a bit spicy, it can be used at the middle and high schools because older students have a wider palate and enjoy more flavorful food. Conversely, the majority of younger students prefer less strong flavors in their food, so the team will use a sauce that still tastes great, but is a bit milder for the elementary schools.
Another important student consideration is how food items look on the plate. People eat with their eyes, says Mattison, so her team is interested in whether or not an item is appealing on the plate. One example is the UBR (Ultimate Breakfast Round) granola bar, a healthy breakfast option that tastes great and meets all the USDA standards, but just doesn’t look very appetizing (brown and kind of lumpy). To combat the UBR’s lack of visual appeal, DHS will drizzle a little icing on top to make it a more appetizing selection.
“We know we have savvy kids, especially at the high school level,” says Mattison, “with expanded palates and access to a wide variety of local restaurants. We try to emulate that in our menus. We want our food to look good, smell good, and taste good.”
One popular entree served at all buildings is the popcorn chicken bowl, which includes mashed potatoes, corn, gravy, popcorn chicken, and cheese. Since younger students often don’t like their food items to touch, this meal is served “unassembled” to the lower grade schools. The items are divided into a five-compartment tray, which allows students to eat them separately or mix them together if they choose.
F&N staff are trained on preparing food for students with allergies, and are vigilant about cross contamination. Special menus are created for these students, but staff try to keep the alternative food similar to that day’s menu, e.g. gluten-free chicken tenders for regular chicken nuggets, or a hamburger on a gluten-free bun instead of on a regular bun. F&N staff don't just ensure that students with allergies have food they can safely eat (and enjoy!). They also strive to ensure that those students' lunch trays don't stand out as different.
To accommodate allergies and provide healthier meals, nothing is fried at DCS; everything is baked, including french fries. In addition, the only nut products served at DCS are Smuckers Uncrustables, which are pre-packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They are not opened until students are seated at their table, so there is no danger of cross contamination of nut products in the kitchens.
Food & Nutrition staff like to keep meal options fresh so students don’t get bored. Some school districts serve meals on a rotating three-week schedule: they set a schedule of meals, then repeat that same schedule every three weeks for the entire year. Dexter menus are adjusted each month to include new items so students aren’t bored with their food.
One popular meal at Dexter, especially in the younger grades, is Breakfast Day with mini pancakes or french toast sticks, sausage links, etc. Students also love Mexican food, and F&N makes sure to include one Mexican-themed meal each week. As mentioned above, popcorn chicken bowls are popular at DHS and calzones continue to be a student favorite. The last time DHS kitchen staff made calzones, they served 450 of them! Fun fact: DCS calzones are hand-made (other than the premade dough); each calzone is stuffed and folded by hand.
At DHS, kitchen staff try to follow local restaurant and food trends when brainstorming meal ideas, e.g. poutine bar, street tacos, ramen bowls, power bowls, bulgogi bar, gyro bar, etc. The “Build Your Own” option is offered at DHS every day, and the salad bar includes lots of options so students can create an entree salad.
“Food & Nutrition staff take great pride in caring for Dexter students” says Mattison. “They treat them like they are their own kids, and lots of love gets poured into the food.”
- Food and Nutrition