Washoe County schools report menu changes, scratch cooking and waste-reduction after new food-service contract

The Washoe County School District received an update Oct. 14 on student meal operations after Southwest Foodservice Excellence LLC (SFE) took over management of the district’s Nutrition Services.

District Chief Operating Officer Adam Searcy provided the presentation and said SFE is operating the district’s enterprise fund for school meals within the National School Lunch Program framework administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture via the Nevada Department of Agriculture.

Searcy said the district serves more than 37,000 meals each school day, including more than 14,000 breakfasts, and that the program’s reimbursements and paid meals allow district prices to remain low. “It’s actually $2.10 for a breakfast and $3.35 for a lunch,” he said.

Tim Wilson, director of nutrition services for SFE, described the district’s central production kitchen and warehouse, and the company’s focus on “fresh from scratch, variety, and restaurant-inspired” recipes for K–12. Wilson said the central kitchen teams pack roughly 50,000 individual items per day, with about 9,000 of those scratch-cooked, and deliver to approximately 70 sites.

Wilson and Searcy described several operational priorities already underway: expanding scratch cooking, increasing culinary training for site kitchen managers, running student taste-test events, strengthening special-diet supports and reducing single-use plastics in cafeterias. Wilson said SFE deployed additional managers and chefs during the vendor transition and has placed culinary staff in secondary sites for on-site support.

Amber Bass, who leads special programs for SFE (noted in the presentation), handles roughly 115 special-diet requests daily and prepares individually labeled boxed meals for students with allergies or medical needs. The board praised the individual attention; Trustee Smith called that work “incredibly valuable” because it reduces medical risk for children with allergies.

The board and SFE staff highlighted early taste-testing events at Billinghurst and AACT, which the vendor plans to continue at every campus. Wilson said the district is recruiting members for a November menu advisory board open to parents, staff and students; he reported 23 sign-ups so far and said anyone may attend even without preregistration.

On waste and sustainability, SFE said it has already replaced some plastic items with recyclable paper products and plans to deploy individual silverware dispensers so students take only what they need. Board members emphasized elementary-level delivery logistics and asked staff to return with detailed plans for reducing single-use materials in those settings.

Trustees and the superintendent complimented kitchen staff and highlighted community benefits of stronger menus and increased participation. Superintendent Ernst and trustees noted that better meals can reduce food waste over time and help students’ school-day engagement.

The presentation was informational; no formal board action was taken on the nutrition item.