It's a Matter of Taste!

Burnt Ends

By Mandy Sosnowski

SNAM President Elect

Food Service Director, Utica Community Schools

The cold, boring part of the year is upon us. It’s the perfect time to start thinking about new food items for the next school year. But what do they want? What will they eat? What is even out there!? Sounds like it’s time to do some food sampling!

For those of you that may have never done this before, it may be daunting. A great place to start may be remembering those items you saw at the SNAM Fall conference food show. Did anything sound different and

Vinnie Kape Dietician UCS

appealing? Or maybe you will spy something at the SNAM Industry Conference in March. Another great source is to ask your main suppliers and brokers if there are any new, popular items other districts are running now, that would be good to try. After gathering these items look and see if any of them would be a potential fit for your district. Do you have the right equipment to prepare, store and serve them? Is it reasonably priced and has the CN crediting you’re looking for? If yes, then will it be appealing to your population? For instance, if it’s a spicy item but spicy doesn’t go in your district will it work? Has it been a really long time since you offered spicy items? If so, then maybe something new might have some appeal.

Once you have taken everything into consideration and you have decided to move forward, then it’s a great time to contact that supplier to see if you can get a sample. I usually start out small and try it with my office or kitchen staff. If they think it will work, then we arrange a sampling at one of the schools. Make sure to take things like allergies, service models, service times and locations into consideration. If you have a school with a large number of kids who don’t eat pork, sampling a pork item might not get enough of a response to truly know if the kids will eat it.

Start small: asking vendors for very large amounts of samples (like 500 to feed everyone) is not practical. It usually shouldn’t replace the whole meal. Ask for enough of something to be able to give the student a little bite or be able to cut the piece into 4 or 5 pieces. For example, if I’m going to sample some new BBQ pulled chicken at a high school with 1600 kids, I may ask for enough to do 1oz samples for 500-600 people. That is more manageable.

Promote it: make signs ahead of time to promote the item to help build excitement and awareness. Do promotional social media posts or school announcements. Make sure staff also help remind the students the day before as well so they seek out the item the next day.

Get ready: gather supplies you need or other ingredients ahead of time. Sometimes the brokers will help you sample the product and they will offer to bring items so make sure you know who’s responsible for what items. This can be things like portion cups, small plates, forks, napkins, etc. If you are sampling something like a cheese sauce or soy butter dip, use a spoon and not a cracker. Students may be influenced by the cracker and not truly taste the dip.

Feedback: Plan ahead! How are you going to get feedback from the students?  You can do something as easy as having them place the empty portion cup sample or plate in a box that says “yes I liked it” or “no I didn’t like it” or give them a poker chip or sticker to vote on the item. If you are planning on doing a survey, be aware that there’s a new law in Michigan that if you are surveying the students for anything, this survey must be disclosed beforehand to parents as well as the results. If it is not, then 5% of federal funding can be taken from the district. Please check with your district first to see if you are even allowed to do this.

It’s Time: Sample day! It’s a great idea to set up a sample plate to show students what the full item looks like and how it would be presented. For example, the BBQ pulled chicken may be featured on a bun. You can have a station set up in the cafeteria to pass out samples if you have the space. If you don’t you can offer a sample while they are going through the serving line. You might need help collecting the results, so having someone circulate in the seating area may help with this.

Know the allergens, when you may serve it, and how it will be served. Be there to talk to the students about the item, but don’t try and influence their decision. Let them know it’s OK if they don’t like it. Sometimes kids want to please adults and will agree even though they don’t like it. Students like to know that their voices are being heard and can influence what the entire district is eating. Remind kids to not yuck someone’s yum. Students are easily influenced by their peers. If you have someone going on and on about how they hate it, it may deter others from trying it. Have a quick conversation with them letting them know that you get it, but they can go sit down now so that others can try it without being influenced.

Gather and Report: once the sampling is done gather your results and think about your acceptability factor. If only 50% of students liked it, this item may not work. Did over 80% of students like it, then this has a better shot of being accepted.  Sometimes other things may influence your results (like late buses for breakfast or tons of kids gone for a field trip) so your results may not be as conclusive as you would like them. You may have to do another round of sampling at a later time at another site.

Once this is all done you can start looking at menuing it for next year. This is a great time to start talking with your suppliers about when it will be available to order, price, how many times you will menu it in your cycle, and how many portions per menu time. Remember that new items aren’t always accepted right away by students. They need to be encouraged to try it and see it multiple times before they may take it. By using menu signage as well as social media advertisements ahead of time, this can help speed up the acceptance process.

Here's to happy sampling!