K-12 pizza competition to raise money for unpaid meal charges

School nutrition professionals across the country are invited to submit their best pizza recipe and help fight meal debt as part of the Sizzling Slice Showdown competition.

The event is being put on this spring by Becki Swan, co-founder of K-12 nutrition technology consultancy Swan Solutions and creator of Facebook group School Nutrition Industry Professionals.

This is the second year Swan has hosted the competition. Last year, the event tasked operators to submit their best sandwich recipe and raised $3,766 to go towards reducing meal debt.

This year, school nutrition teams will compete to see who has the best pizza. To enter the competition, teams must submit their recipe along with a photo. Users can then vote on their favorite pizza and donate money to go towards reducing meal debt.

At the end of the competition, each team is awarded a portion of the donated money to go towards their meal debt based on the percentage of votes they received. 

Meal debt continues to be a top challenge for school nutrition teams. A study released earlier this year by the School Nutrition Association (SNA) revealed that over half of school nutrition operators who participated in the study (60.9%) listed unpaid meal charges as a challenge for their program.