BY IRENE LABOMBARDE

Bedford students will have a wide variety of healthy menu choices when school reopens in the fall.

Beginning in 2007-08, all meals and snacks served in schools must follow the guidelines established by the New Hampshire Coalition for Healthy Foods.

Lisa Dollins, director of the school district’s food services, said her staff served an average of 1,600 lunches daily last
year. That number will increase by about 360 with the opening of Bedford High School.

Dollins said five additional servers and cashiers have been hired and trained for the high school and the adjacent Ross A. Lurgio Middle School. The  new schools were designed to have one central kitchen serving two separate cafeterias.

Middle- and high-schoolers will have three lunch options: hot food, deli sandwiches and a la carte. Lunch at the new schools will cost $2.60, an increase of 20 cents over last year’s rate at McKelvie. The same prepaid system already in place throughout the district, where money is deposited into a student’s account, will be used.  

The a la carte menu will feature yogurt, baked chips, granola bars, breakfast bars, fruit rollups and ice cream, costing 25 cents to $2. Dollins said all a la carte items will meet the wellness guidelines.

Once the new kitchen has been running smoothly through lunchtime for a few weeks, Dollins said a “grab and go” breakfast will be offered at the high school. For $1.25, students will be able to get cereal, fruit or juice, and milk. A breakfast time slot has been factored into the daily schedule, and students will be allowed to enter the cafeteria upon arrival.

At the elementary schools, the snack program is being discontinued.

“It only caused chaos, with kids trying to throw out their lunch and get back in the snack line,” said Dollins.

Special treats such as ice cream  or dessert will be offered a few times a month for an additional charge of 25 to 50 cents. Treats will be listed in advance on the menu and can be purchased by anyone regardless of whether they purchase the entree.

Other changes implemented last year, such as whole grain products and the popular “grab and go” bagel/yogurt combination lunches, will remain in place.

Future goals for food services department include becoming more environmentally friendly, said Dollins.

The food services department usually breaks even and anticipated revenues from the more profitable a la carte sales at the high school would help finance the change from styrofoam to more costly “green” paper products, she said.

Food service brochures will be distributed to parents at the beginning of the school year.