How Green Is Your Lunch Program?
By Deb Lundin

One of the hottest topics of late is global warming, saving the planet’s resources. So, can school food service technology save the planet?

Okay, that may be a little bit too ambitious. But most school food service systems have some built-in features that can at least help save some trees by reducing the amount of paper you use. 

Consider these statistics from 2007 from the National School Lunch Program Data, United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service Division:

* School cafeterias served more than 5 billion nutritious lunches to 30.5 million K-12 students participating in the National School Lunch Program. 
* Schools serve lunches to students in an average time span of about 2.5 hours.
* About 17.9 million students received free or reduced-priced lunches.

The reason these statistics are available is because schools are required to track and report the number of meals served to students and the number of students and families approved for free and reduced-priced meals. With those statistics in mind, you probably have a pretty clear picture of the amount of paperwork (i.e., trees) required to efficiently run a school food service program.

Obviously, before the advent of computer systems and software for tracking meals served and processing meal applications, the Internet, and e-mail, all of this tracking and reporting had to be done on paper. Furthermore, until just a few years ago, meal applications were distributed and collected for each and every student at most schools, until the USDA regulations were changed to require schools to accept family applications (one application per family). That certainly cut down on paper usage. 

However, I recently visited a school that still maintains copies of every application at each school within its system, and it keeps the original on file at the central office as well.  Since the data must be maintained for at least three years, that’s a lot of paper. 

For processing applications, some states have implemented Web sites where parents can apply for free and reduced-priced meals online. Even if this isn’t an option in your state, some software products also offer this feature, as well as the ability to import Meal Applications. Others offer the ability to scan Meal Applications to an image file, or import the information, using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) technologies. 

With the electronic copies on file, it’s no longer necessary to maintain the paper copies, as long as the electronic copies are backed up to a safe location regularly.

This also saves the enormous amount of time that is spent on processing applications and updating meal statuses for students. Students are instantly approved or denied when the application is scanned.

Additionally, Point-Of-Sale and Meal Applications software products can generate reports and parent betters instantly to electronic files, such as PDF or another image format. States also have begun to provide ways for schools to report lunch participation and submit State Reimbursement Claims online. Many systems also generate the State Forms automatically.

The ability to e-mail parent notification letters, low balance notifications, and participation reports is another great feature. 

Some systems also offer online payment options for parents to pay for school meals and print participation reports, so they can monitor what their kids are eating at school every day. This also eliminates the need for parents to write checks or send cash with their children each day to pay for their meals. 

Food service technology offers many ways for reducing the amount of paperwork required for keeping your cafeteria running smoothly, but only if your system offers these features…and only if you’re using them. 

If you’re not sure whether your food service software provides some of the features mentioned above, ask them. If they don’t offer a particular feature that you want, request it. Software development companies listen to their customers, and that’s you. 

We might not save the planet and stop global warming, but together, we can save a forest of trees. By reducing your paperwork, you also save time and money.

Deb Lundin has worked in the school food service field for 13 years. Prior to joining Comalex, Inc. in 2001, Deb worked at Immanuel Lutheran School in Columbus, Nebraska.  Comalex, Inc. has been developing and supporting Point-Of-Sale and Meal Applications software for School Food Service operations since 1992, www.comalex.com.