In Brief 2012-01-01

Virginia Tech has named Ted Faulkner its new director of Dining Services, succeeding Rick Johnson, who left a year ago to join Duke University as assistant VP for housing and dining. Faulkner began his career at Virginia Tech in 1998 as a nutritionist. He was named associate director of dining services in 2003 and senior associate director last February.

A survey of 16 children's hospital cafeterias in California revealed that of the nearly 400 entree/sandwich selections served, only seven percent were deemed “healthy” by the study's criteria. The study, published in the journal Academic Pediatrics, was conducted by researchers at UCLA and the RAND Corp.

Middlebury College has embarked on an experimental meat reduction initiative called LessMeat Monday. On November 28, two dining halls implemented a trial run of the program by serving only one meat option, while the usual second meat option was replaced by a vegetarian dish.

All Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems hospitals will implement the Guiding Stars nutrition rating system to label all prepared meals, snacks and grab-and-go items in their cafeterias by the end of February. Guiding Stars, which labels items on a zero-to-three stars scale depending on their nutritional profiles, is routinely used in retail grocery stores in the state and is thus familiar to customers.

The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture. Eleven states had four-year increases of 25 percent or more.

AHF, NACUFS, SFM and FCSI are collaborating to bring industry experts together for a full day of educational presentations, facility tours and networking on January 27th at the Redmond, WA, headquarters complex of Microsoft for the Solutions4 Trends in Sustainable Foodservice Conference. For registration info, go to http://fcsita.site-ym.com/event/S4conference.

New Haven (CT) High School in the Community Chef Cheryl Barbara won a $10,000 prize in a Food Network cooking competition against three other school chefs. The culinary face-off, on the show Chopped, pitted Barbara against New Haven Common Ground High School head chef Rhonda LaRoatch, Diane Houlihan of Waterford, CT's Great Neck Elementary School and Arlene Leggio of Islip (NY) High School.