New food services director outlines menu, technology and supplier changes

Anthony Rollins, the district’s new food services director, gave the board a workshop overview of changes in the school meal program, including a new cloud-based point-of-sale system, a registered dietitian through Capital Region BOCES, a new vendor contract and renewed farm-to-school activities.

Rollins said he began in February and has 27 years of restaurant experience and five years in school food service. The district moved from Mosaic to a cloud-based point-of-sale system called Link (also referred to as Titan/LinkPay) on Aug. 1; Rollins said accounts and balances were transferred and parents can use LinkPay to load funds online. He said allergens for the top nine allergens were reviewed and validated with the school nurse.

Rollins said the district joined a purchasing cooperative through Capital Region BOCES to access a registered dietitian for menu planning and nutritional analysis. The district also switched primary food purchasing to US Foods while keeping Daigle Produce for produce; Rollins said those cooperative purchases reduced some case prices by $1–$4 per case. He said menu-planning features allow tight cost control and real‑time updates to the website when daily menus change.

Rollins described staffing challenges: the department is recruiting substitutes and had one recent resignation; he said training on the new POS will continue through the first conference day. He also said the district will restart farm‑to‑school tastings beginning in October in a phased approach and plans printed monthly menus to address a website formatting issue.