The International Fresh Produce Association will welcome more than 100 school nutrition operators with the fresh produce industry at its K-12 School Foodservice Forum held during its Foodservice Conference, July 25-26 in Monterey, Calif.
Andrew Marshall, IFPA's staff liaison for wholesaler-distributor members, says school nutrition operators from all over the country offer a tremendous buying power, perhaps overlooked in the greater foodservice world.
“Our message around K-12 schools is that schools are the largest restaurant in town,” he said. “They are large-volume foodservice buyers that are a consistent business [that doesn't] go out of business and are serving next-generation consumers.”
What to expect at the forum
Marshall says K-12 School Foodservice Forum will start Wednesday, July 24, at the Foodservice Conference with a mini expo designed for the school forum attendees. Thirty companies will display offerings for the forum attendees exclusively.
“These are companies that are either selling to schools currently or want to understand the market better so that they can get their products in front of the schools,” he said.
K-12 School Foodservice Forum attendees will also participate in Taylor Farms' field tours on Thursday, July 25, and then general and breakout sessions. IFPA will offer breakout sessions centered around school nutrition.
“We want schools to be aware of the wide variety of products and pack sizes that exist in the marketplace, so that they can then go back and talk to their distributor and say, ‘Hey, I saw Brussels sprouts have been cleaned in a 5-pound bag. I didn't know that this product existed. How can we get something like this on our menu to try once a month, twice a month?'” Marshall said.
He says including school nutrition in the produce conversation helps the industry and school nutrition operators. Produce is often on the back burner at school nutrition conferences, whereas IFPA's Foodservice Forum is devoted entirely to products, best practices and more.
“It gives them two to three days to just put their produce thinking cap on,” Marshall said. “What do they want to do this year? What do they want to do next year? What do they want to do in five years with fruits and vegetables? And it allows them to have two to three days just focused on fruits and vegetables.”
On Friday, July 26, Marshall said K-12 School Foodservice Forum attendees will also get a mini expo in the morning. Then, following a women in foodservice panel, attendees of the greater Foodservice Conference and the school foodservice forum will hit the trade show floor to visit booths from more than 200 exhibitors.
After the expo, Marshall says K-12 School Foodservice Forum attendees will convene for a culinary ideation session and an expo debrief to highlight what caught the attendees' attention on the floor.
“We actually tell the school folks to bring a product that they saw on the show floor — ask the company for a package — to show everybody when they're starting to talk about — what it was, they saw, what they liked,” he said. “After that, we do a culinary ideation. A chef from the USDA-funded Institute of Child Nutrition will do several recipes that are highlighting fresh produce and fresh herbs that could boost flavor without added sodium.”
Trends in school nutrition
Marshall says today's school lunches look nothing like those from Lunchlady Land. More than 30 million children daily participate in the National School Lunch Program, and today's school lunches emulate many of the food trends seen in restaurants. For example, Marshall says, something like Buffalo cauliflower. Other innovative offerings include salad greens and berries and even the reemergence of salad bars.
“What the school foodservice operators are trying to do is mimic the flavors, the trends, the innovations that folks are seeing ... in the QSR restaurant space and bring that into their programs, because at the end of the day, schools live and die on participation in their program,” he said
And much like elsewhere in the produce industry, schools also want to learn about sustainable packaging, different packaging offerings and packaging that extends shelf life.
“Schools definitely are looking for variety when it comes to packaging,” Marshall said. “Schools understand their foodservice impact in terms of buying and sustainability.
And importantly, schools and the students they feed want to know about the farmers who grow the food served, Marshall says.
“The more that the distributor or the shipper can help tell the story around where the product is coming from — the local family ranch that's had been farming for 50 plus years … the schools want to know that and promote it,” he said. “If they can tell the story that this grower is growing apples in XYZ town and the kids can recognize that town, that's part of the story that they're trying to tell. So, even when it comes to some of the bigger grower-shippers that want to tell their story, schools want to be able to hear that and promote it.”