Universal free school meals featured on late-night TV and more news you may have missed

Check out some foodservice news you may have missed this week, including Universal free school meals being featured on late-night TV, and more.

The topic of universal free school meals was in the spotlight recently during a segment on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. During the segment, Oliver showed his support for offering meals to all students at no charge and discussed other challenges school nutrition operators are currently facing, including low school meal reimbursement rates.

Read the full story via The Guardian.

Delivery robots at the University of Nevada Las Vegas will be driving off campus for the first time. The city has permitted the school to allow the robots to deliver food to students living in off-campus housing. The robots won’t be making the deliveries until 2026, however, due to construction on county sidewalk.

Read the full story via the Las Vegas Sun.

Nearly 70% of hospitals affiliated with medical schools contain a fast-food restaurant, a survey by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has revealed.

The survey included responses from 255 medical students representing 146 schools across the country. It found that 101 schools were reported to house at least one fast-food restaurant.

Chick-fil-a, McDonalds, Starbucks, Subway, and Au Bon Pain were the most popular chains present in the hospitals, according to the survey.

Read the full story via Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Utah Governor Spencer J. Cox is using funding from the American Rescue Plan to help alleviate meal debt in the state.  He has redirected $1.2 million of American Rescue Plan Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools (EANS) funds to create a grant program that will award schools with funding to go towards erasing meal debt incurred by low-income families.

Read the full story via Food Service Director.

The Indianapolis Colts have gifted $1 million to support PataSchool, an initiative by nonprofit The Patachou Foundation that restores working kitchens in Indianapolis schools and provides scratch-made meals to all students at no charge.

The gift will help support three PataSchools which will serve 1.2 million meals to 3,500 students in Indianapolis over the next five years. 

Read the full story via colts.com.