When nearly 12,000 students returned to Palatine School District 15 last month, they found a popular item missing from the school lunch menu: emoji chicken patty.
Pandemic supply chain issues affecting the U.S. food supply meant the chicken, arranged in the form of smiley faces and other symbols, had to be replaced with a less kid-friendly alternative.
Kristin Voigts, the district’s director of nutrition, has also struggled to find employees for unfilled food service positions, which required her to recruit principals and teachers to volunteer for lunch duty at the district’s 19 schools.
But nothing prepared Voigts for the phone call she received at 2 p.m. on a recent Friday from the district’s main food vendor.
“They told me that due to labor shortages, effective immediately, they no longer would be able to deliver food and other supplies to us,” Voigts said.
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“Everyone knew the delivery driver situation was bad, and we understood, so I called our second-largest vendor, and asked if they could fill in, even for a week, and they said, ‘No, sorry, we’re just trying to keep our business afloat,’” said Voigts, adding that the district finally forged a new contract with another wholesale food provider.
Jaime Gusanas, a third grade teacher, hands out lunch items to students in her class at Pleasant Hill Elementary in Palatine on Aug. 31, 2021. The nationwide food supply chain crisis has hit suburban Chicago schools hard this fall, including Pleasant Hill Elementary School, where the school lunch crew learned recently its main vendor was halting service due to a shortage of delivery drivers. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
This school year, the federal government is requiring public schools like District 15 to provide free meals to all students, regardless of household income, to ensure children receive nutritious meals at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has many families hit hard by food insecurity, unemployment and the deaths of loved ones.
In some districts, demand for free meals has already spiked 50% from pre-pandemic levels. School districts are being reimbursed for the meals, but the federal mandate is colliding with nationwide food supply shortfalls and a scarcity of delivery drivers, leaving districts to wonder: How do you feed students what is anticipated to be a record-breaking number of meals with a shrinking supply of food and labor?
The School Nutrition Association’s Back to School 2021 Survey of school meal program directors nationwide found that 97% are concerned about continued pandemic supply chain disruptions, with 65% citing it as a serious concern, SNA spokesperson Diane Pratt-Heavner said.
Common problems at schools across the U.S. include menu items that are discontinued by the manufacturer or no longer available in sufficient quantities, Pratt-Heavner said.
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Schools meal programs are being hampered by longer-than-normal lead times, significantly higher costs compared with pre-pandemic bids, late or delayed deliveries, and distributors not carrying menu items or processed commodities needed to meet National School Lunch Program nutrition standards, including whole-grain, low-sodium and low-fat products, she said.
“Bottom line is that parents and students should expect last-minute changes to the menu this school year,” Pratt-Heavner said. “Menus will be more streamlined, and we can expect substitutions until these supply chain issues are resolved.”
Officials at the USDA said in a statement that the agency has taken steps to alleviate the concerns, including a waiver that allows flexibility in the meal standards and makes it easier for a school’s lunch staff to prepare meals when there are shortages of food items.
“We understand that they are making business decisions to streamline their operation models as they face unprecedented challenges in the form of labor shortages, transportation difficulties, and other obstacles in distributing their products,” officials said.
At Township High School District 211, the largest suburban high school district in Illinois, the number of meals being served to roughly 12,000 students at the district’s five high schools has climbed more than 50% from pre-pandemic demand, said Tracy Lenihan, the Palatine-based district’s director of food and nutrition services.
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“We’ve definitely seeing food shortages ... But if our food vendor is out of stock of items A, B and C, like we’ve done throughout the pandemic, we pivot and figure out what we can make out of X, Y and Z,” Lenihan said. The district prepares all of its meals in-house, including baked goods like granola, muffins and French bread.
The food supply shortfalls have led to a “streamlined menu” of five to six menu choices this fall, compared with the 12 to 15 items offered pre-pandemic, Lenihan said.
Lunch workers Marcia Thompson, right, and Diane Czubek, left, wheel containers of lunches down the hall at Pleasant Hill Elementary in Palatine on Aug. 31, 2021. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
While some students and parents might be disheartened by the adjusted menu, Lenihan said the district’s food services team is “trying to stay focused on the quality of our menu, instead of the quantity of choices.”
This fall, the district is serving an average of about 6,500 lunches a day — a roughly 63% increase from the 4,000 lunches served daily pre-pandemic, Lenihan said.
“I’m hoping we can show each other grace, and express how happy we are to have our ‘customers’ back and to be feeding them all again,” Lenihan said.
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When the lunch hour arrives at School District 59′s 15 schools, a scarcity of food service workers — the Elk Grove Village-based district currently has 14 openings — means “it’s all hands on deck,” said Ron O’Connor, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services.
“We have our teachers, custodians and even principals, all racing to make sure we get food to our students,” O’Connor said.
While O’Connor said the district has not encountered any major food supply or delivery problems with its vendors, strictly adhering to COVID-19 mitigation strategies while serving meals to thousands of students is complicated and exhausting.
“We can’t serve everyone in the lunchroom, because the kids need to spread out, which has taken quite a toll on our custodial staff doing the cleanup,” O’Connor said.
But the challenges are worth the effort, O’Connor said, as the district is serving students nutritious meals at a time when many families are dealing with unprecedented hardships. During July, when schools were closed, the district served 19,000 meals, including breakfast and lunch, O’Connor said.
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“We’re feeling it, but the silver lining is more people are being fed during the pandemic,” he said.
In a message this week from Downers Grove Grade School District 58, parents were warned that “a work stoppage at a large area food supplier will significantly limit our food supply and require a change to our menus for this week and potentially into next week as well.”
District 58 Superintendent Kevin Russell said Wednesday that the district uses Aramark as its food service provider, and those services were not halted. But Sysco — which had a workers strike this week — supplied Aramark, which meant a change in the types of meals the district was able to provide.
“We believe the issue has been resolved and everything will return to normal next week,” he said.
At Pleasant Hill Elementary School in Palatine, sixth grader Justin Lin, 11, described his school lunch on a recent afternoon — a ham and cheese sandwich, baked potato chips, applesauce, a juice box and milk — as “decent.” He said the menu in general offers “pretty good food.”
Justin Lin eats his lunch in the lunchroom at Pleasant Hill Elementary in Palatine on Aug. 31, 2021. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
But Justin also said he misses the chicken emoji patties that were on the menu before the pandemic. “We had pizza all of the time, and now, they barely serve it once a year,” Justin said.
Last school year, when some District 15 students were back in the classroom and others were learning online, the district served 1.3 million meals to students and other members of the community, said Tina Woods, the district’s assistant director of food service.
“We’re going to feed your kids with the best products we can, but it might not be the same chicken patty,” Woods said, adding: “The bottom line is, all of our kids are getting fed.”
kcullotta@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @kcullotta
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