3 smart techniques to boost school breakfast participation

It was a packed house for the “Boosting Breakfast Through Innovation” session at the School Nutrition Association’s (SNA) Annual National Conference (ANC) which took place last week in Boston. Attendees heard from three food service directors at districts across the country about how they are finding ways to encourage students to take advantage of breakfast when they arrive at school to start their day.

Here are three techniques shared during the panel to consider implementing.

1. Make breakfast unavoidable

At Madison Metropolitan School District in Madison Wisconsin, Director of Food and Nutrition Josh Perkins has found that providing breakfast outside the cafeteria has been a way to encourage students to take part in the morning meal.  

“Having a setup where the students have to enter the school building and make a trip to a cafeteria so that they get breakfast is going the way the dodo,” he said. “Our main strategy school by school has been to figure out where we can basically make breakfast unavoidable for students in the normal course of the traffic.”

While the setup and breakfast menu look a little different at every school, Perkins’ goal is to make grabbing breakfast as easy possible for students as they make their way to class.

Along with boosting participation, having students avoid going into the cafeteria also allows them to not feel stigmatized about breakfast, Perkins said.

“You completely bypass the syndrome where students feel like if they're self-identified as being belonging to a certain socioeconomic status, because they are the ones going to the cafeteria,” he shared.

2. Sit with students

Michael Rosenberger, director of food and childhood nutrition services at Dallas Independent School District (Dallas ISD) encourages his fellow school nutrition professionals to take the time to sit with students when they're in the cafeteria and learn about why they will and won’t participate in school meals.

At one of the district’s middle schools, for example, students were still not participating in breakfast in the cafeteria even though they gave the menu and the service rave reviews.

Rosenberger decided to go sit down with students in the cafeteria one morning to get their take on why they weren’t going up to grab breakfast. He found out that the main barrier between them and getting a meal was that they didn’t want to leave their friends.

“That was an eye opener for us,” he shared. “Social pressure stopped hungry kids from having amazing food. Once they got to sit with their friends, they were not moving from that seat.”

Rosenberger and the team ended up transitioning to breakfast carts in the hallway and increased participation numbers followed soon after.

“The lesson is we may not know as much as we think we know about our customers and why they participate and why they don't,” he said.

3.  Install vending

One way Caitlin Lazzarski, director of school nutrition for Pine Bush Central School District in Pine Bush, New York has boosted breakfast participation for older grade levels is by introducing vending machines.

“My high school students are now able to get breakfast all the way up until 10 a.m. and that has provided almost double the amount of breakfast participation,” said Lazzarski.

The vending machines are placed at “strategic points in the buildings,” she said, and students simply type in their student PIN number and birth date into the vending machine to receive their meal.

Since the machines are available many teachers will also give students permission to grab their meals during passing periods or students can also go to them during free periods or study hall.