Power Players 2017: School makes dough from soup sales

The soup made in the kitchens at Harvard Schools is so good it sells on its own. Popular formulations include leek and potato, red lentil with red curry, chicken noodle and, of course, chowder. In fact, the meal program is able to subsidize itself to the tune of some $50,000 in profit annually by selling its soups to the general public.

That is quite a reflection on the quality of district meal program, which serves an array of attractive dishes ranging from those soups and ethnically flavored selections like rice bowls and Indian dishes to composed vegetable salads, to-order deli sandwiches and three pizza choices a day at the high school.

“We have expanded our program over the years as kids become more sophisticated in terms of food choices and as popular tastes have changed,” observes Paul Correnty, who has overseen the dining program at Harvard Schools for the past 20 years. “We now have more Indian and Asian families in the district and their cultural preferences influence us because, for example, many are vegetarians.”

Harvard Schools had always offered a vegetarian entrée daily, “but now we have more offerings,” Correnty notes. He says he has expanded his repertoire by taking classes on topics like Indian cuisine and adapted it to the requirements of a school meal program that must abide by National School Lunch Program regulations.

“We do a lot more stew-type dishes now, for example,” he says. “We’ve had Rice Bowl Thursdays to take advantage of rice as an ingredient, and the kids are going for it.”

Another popular category is composed salads. The high school offers five main dish choices a day and “almost everybody eats something,” even if it’s only a cup of soup from the a la carte line, Correnty observes. Choices on the lunch line include a main entrée, an upscale sandwich/wrap, a to-order deli line featuring a variety of breads, a full salad bar and three pizza choices. Everything comes with sides and a cup of soup.

This coming year, Correnty is adding a separate soup area to the high school servery. “We’ll have two choices a day,” he says, “with the option of a soup bowl lunch.”

The elementary menu is smaller but there is a salad bar, plus a hot dish and full deli. One day is week is reserved for featuring local or organic selections.

While not everything is made from scratch in the Harvard Schools kitchens—“we do get some pre-prepared foods and high-quality frozen products,” Correnty admits—dressings and those highly popular and profitable soups are scratch made.

The meal program caters to the population and gives them nutrient-dense foods because “we have a population of very active kids,” Correnty observes.

Breakfast is generally composed of baked goods, smoothies, oatmeal bars, juices and breakfast sandwiches on Wednesdays.

The former restaurateur—Correnty operated his own establishment for a decade before entering the onsite foodservice world, initially in corporate dining with management company Eurest—knows where the competition to his meal program lurks.

“We compete with street restaurants,” he acknowledges, “so we have to offer what they do but make it less expensive.”

The meal program must be self-sustaining, so being able to generate revenues from outside sources is a big plus, and that’s where the catering and soup program make a big difference. The soups, which sell for $10 a quart, are marketed at local farmers’ markets and pitched to seniors, who appreciate a warm homemade treat especially in the dead of the Massachusetts winter. Correnty has an email list of customers who await the selections—there are three at a time—each fall. Most customers pick up their orders at the high school, though some seniors get theirs delivered.

The old standbys like potato leek and chowders get the most response, but Correnty says he’s tried to get a bit more exotic with some of the choices just to add some variety. He’s also constantly upgrading the ingredients, adding locally sourced fish, for example.

Local product is also emphasized in the school meal program, which currently buys product from five local farms, filling a van several times a week with fresh goodies that will then wind up in salads, sides, soups and main dishes.

Teaching student to eat right, to understand cooking and to appreciate “real food” are all part of the mission as Correnty sees it. He himself is a student not only of the culinary arts as a chef, but as a food culture historian. He is an expert on early American cider making—in fact, he wrote a book about it—and is still involved with the local Franklin County Cider Days festival, which will hold its 23rd annual event this November.

“We consider our kitchens to be open classrooms,” Correnty explains. “When I fillet a fish or unload fresh local produce and wash it, kids can see where it comes from and how it is prepared. Many of them come back to tell me that they learned to appreciate food from us.”