As most of the students have noticed by now, the 2016-2017 school year was kicked off with the addition of a new slushie machine in the high school cafeteria. The school was given the machine free of charge from Slush Puppy, as long as their products are being used in the machine.
The slushies are sold in the cafeteria during all lunches for an additional $1 to any student’s school lunch. The slushies sold in the cafeteria have a lower sugar content and calorie content than regular slushies that you would purchase from a convenience store, like Sheetz or Speedway. This modification is to make sure that the slushies fall within the guidelines the National School Lunch Program has made for á la carte sales. These products are made specifically to be sold in school cafeterias.
Sides and snacks, such as the slushies and items sold in the vending machine, must have a calorie count of 200 calories or less. They must also have 35 percent of sugar by weight or less.
Randy Walker, the food service director for Freedom and Riverside, saw that slushies were popular among other high schools when he would attend various food shows to try and come up with new ideas of things to add and change to make school lunches more enjoyable.
“Each year, I like to introduce a new product to high school students. The slushie machine was a product I used successfully at my previous district, [Laurel Highlands], so I figured I’d give it a try here at Freedom,” Walker said.
This change was implemented after a few new additions from the previous school year. One of these modifications was the addition of the Grab-N-Go Breakfast Cart. It’s highly encouraged that students eat a healthy breakfast every morning, so the cart was brought in to make it convenient for students to get a breakfast.
The Grab-N-Go Cart was installed for students to grab a breakfast from the lobby, which will be charged directly from their school lunch account.
Breakfast costs $1.15. The price may vary depending upon if the student is a part of the free or reduced lunch program because if they are, then they will receive a free or reduced breakfast as well.
Snapple products were also brought into the cafeteria in the 2015-2016 school year. After a one day trial test last year with a Grower’s Pride juice dispenser, Snapple’s half-and-half lemonade and iced tea was added into the menu, along with other Snapple juice and tea items which are sold alongside the milk and water in the lunch line.
According to Walker, there are no other changes in the works for the cafeteria this year so far.