Food service director and new farm-to-school coordinator report expanded taste-testing and participation

Kim Rolle, the district’s food service director, told the Kenmore-Tonawanda Board of Education on Dec. 10 that the district serves roughly 4,091 lunch meals on an average school day and that breakfast participation is about 39%, which she quantified as about 2,343 breakfasts per day. Rolle said the food-service team includes 58 staff members and introduced the district’s first farm-to-school coordinator, Nicole Zugelder.

Zugelder described a farm-to-school program that links the cafeteria to classroom lessons and monthly themes, with a major emphasis on taste testing. "Since September 3, we've done 9,711 taste tests across all the schools," she told the board, adding that the program was expected to exceed 10,000 taste tests by the end of the week. She listed recent activities including the Big Apple Crunch (an apple-eating event across the district), a Harvest Festival that drew more than 400 families, monthly cook kits sent to different schools and upcoming make-and-take student events around Valentine’s Day and a spring harvest festival.

Rolle and Zugelder described classroom conversations connected to taste tests — students discussed family food traditions and menu items and sometimes brought new foods home — and reported partnerships with Independent Health and other community groups to support wellness lessons and occasional on-site demonstrations.

Notes on transcript numbers: the food-service presentation recorded a numeric value read as "699%" for lunch participation in one segment; that percentage is inconsistent with the other figures provided and appears to be a transcription error. This article uses the raw meal counts provided (4,091 lunches; 2,343 breakfasts) and the taste-test totals reported by the farm-to-school coordinator; exact participation percentages should be verified against official food-service reports for publication.