To the editor: CAES Food staff readies meal plans

The kitchen staff at Chester-Andover Elementary School is looking forward to beginning another fun year of providing nutritious meals to all of the students and staff. This year will begin with the return of School Year’s Eve on the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 28, with classes beginning on Wednesday, Aug. 29.

As in years past, I am working hard to increase our purchasing of fresh, local foods and continue to build our Farm to School Programs. One aspect is Harvest of the Month, which is brought to the children with the help of Food Connects, a distributor of goods from local farmers. Each month we highlight a local food in a taste test during lunch service. It’s an event the kids look forward to.

The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, through the Child Nutrition Programs of Vermont, will be offered again this school year, allowing us to offer fresh fruits and vegetables during non-mealtime hours at no cost.

As always, we still offer our Salad Bar daily with every meal. This year we plan on expanding our recycle programs to include districtwide composting of all food scraps two years ahead of the deadline to eliminate all food scraps from the waste stream. Last year, we pretty much ended the use of any paper products, with the exception of napkins. I eliminated paper plates, portion control packets such as mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup. We plan to explore the elimination of the plastic straws.  Here is the TRSU lunch charge procedure.

We have been working with a company called Grow Compost of Vermont; please check out its website by clicking here.  Grow Compost offers training, pickup of food scraps, even field trips to their facility for the children to allow them to see what happens to the food scraps.

I have posted menus on our website so feel free to check them out. Please call me anytime with any questions or concerns you may have: Cell: 802-952-9133; Kitchen phone: 802-875-6850

Sincerely,
Jack Carroll and Staff
CAES Food Services

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