Food trailers bump up lunch participation at district high school

Like just about all school districts, the Los Fresnos Consolidated Independent School District in Texas wants as many students as possible to eat a healthy school lunch. The district had been doing pretty well even in its high school, which has an enrollment of about 1,600 juniors and seniors (a separate location enrolls freshmen and sophomores), and where it was getting an average daily lunch participation in the 1,100 to 1,200 range. That’s not a bad record for hooking older teens into eating in the cafeteria, which is often regarded as the uncoolest place on earth by this age cohort.

Still, there’s always room for improvement, and Los Fresnos decided to go for it with a food trailer that would serve as an additional service platform during lunch. And because it was outside, and had the benefit of being associated with the trendy—and definitely cool—food truck world, it could attract those students who resisted the traditional cafeteria.

Well, so far so good. The trailer, branded as the Fresh Culinary Creations Food Trailer, debuted in late August at the high school and has been drawing an average of about 300 customers a day while bumping average daily lunch participation up by about a hundred students at the site.

The truck sets up just outside the cafeteria every day, unless rainy weather makes it impractical—the district’s location at the extreme southern tip of the state ensures winter weather won’t be a problem—and is staffed by two servers.

Its menu is different from what is available inside and currently operates on a weekly cycle with a different dish each day, such as the Mexican week’s cycle having tacos one day, fajitas the next and so on before going on to another cuisine tradition such as Asian the following week.

As the school year goes on, the menu will be determined by the reactions to what had been served previously, supplemented with student survey data.

Currently, only one main item is available each day.

“Eventually we want to have more but for now we want to see how it rolls out with one,” says Rey Ovalle, child nutrition services director for the district.

The offerings dispensed from the trailer are a mix of pre-prepared and made to order. Additional condiments are made available outside the trailer so students can custom-flavor their selections.

A second trailer is scheduled to debut soon at the district’s ninth and 10th grade campus to give those students an additional lunch option as well.

The trailers supplement what are already fairly wide food choices inside the cafeterias, where both the upper and lower high schools offer at least half a dozen daily lunch entrée choices ranging from burgers and pizzas to salads and homestyle entrees like chicken and waffles and various pasta dishes.