This year, the schools have initiated the final step in removing all unhealthy food and beverages. Only items that meet the schools' nutrition standards list as Choose Sometimes and Choose Most are allowed to be sold.
I was quite discouraged over the past few years as to what we would sell to our over 200 school customers, but in the 11th hour, suppliers have come up with all sorts of modified recipes and packaging to meet the guidelines. New "baked" chips, raisins, juices, cookies, snack bars, nut mixes and more all taste great, and for the most part have been portion controlled to about 100 calories. I like this idea, since a snack is just that, a snack, and some portions were getting out of control, like giant bags of chips.
This year, our school catalogue will see a completely new selection of about 150 items schools can sell. I feel like this could actually be a good year for school sales. What will determine this is whether kids stay at school and pony up for a healthy snack.
If they leave to cross the street to the corner store, then school sales and profits for the school will drop to almost nothing. This year will be quite interesting. Maybe Costless should sell to the growing corner store market, and follow the kids? Near my house, I see the corner store has a security guard who only allows 6 kids in the store at once, and the lineup outside runs down the street. Hmmmm...
Cheers,
Calvin
