Central Kitchen Brings Benefits to CA District

The Redlands (CA) Unified School District’s new $1.5 million central kitchen is working to reduce costs while increasing nutrition, food quality and variety, reports the Riverside Press-Enterprise. Among the new menu items made possible by the recently opened production operation cited in the report are fresh hand-made deli grinders and burritos, fruit cups and jumbo salads.

The kitchen’s eight-person crew prepares 1,800 vegetable cups, 525 grinders, 1,065 burritos, 740 sandwiches and hundreds of salads (madce with from-scratch dressings), special entrees, teriyaki chicken bowls and other dishes each week for the district’s 21,170 students.

Among the benefits expected by department administrators are a 30-percent increase in meal counts and labor savings through the gradual elimination of 29 positions. Last year, the district served around 357,000 breakfasts and almost 1.7 million lunches. Revenues for the current year are expected to exceed $4.8 million.