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or to the changes. “It was a change for [the high school- ers], but our younger kids were just like, ‘Oh, this is how it’s been done,” she shared. 2. AI ELICITS HESITANCY FROM MANUFACTURES While some school nutrition depart - ments have leveraged AI to help with certain tasks , some K-12 manufactures are still cautious about relying too much on artificial intelligence. During a panel, manufactures shared that AI is not a focus for them at this time and cautioned K-12 nutrition pro - fessionals from using the technology for things like writing bid equipment speci- fications. “I would recommend on specifica - tions to pull it from the manufacturer’s website because if you’ve ever tried to generate anything on AI, it doesn’t look anything like what you would write,” Carroll Bender, director of consultant services for Jackson WWS, shared dur- ing the panel. 3. SCHOOL NUTRITION TEAMS GET CREATIVE AS LABOR AND CHALLENGES CONTINUE Labor continues to be a challenge for K-12 operators and many are unable to offer competitive wages to attract and retain new employees. As a result, some nutrition teams have started thinking outside the box to come up with other ways to boost their recruitment and re- tainment efforts. During a session led by Dr. Yetunde Alade, assistant director for the nutrition team at Clayton County Public Schools in Jonesboro, Georgia, Alade shared how the nutrition department came up with an employee perks program after experiencing severe staffing shortages due to COVID-19. The program allows employees to re- ceive financial rewards if they do well on the job. For example, employees who receive perfect attendance every quar- ter receive a $500 bonus on their next paycheck.
and their industry partners discussed everything from the new school nutri- tion standards, to implementing AI and more. Here are three big takeaways from the conference. 1. OPERATORS AND INDUSTRY PARTNERS ARE GEARING UP FOR ADDED SUGAR RESTRICTIONS The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced its final rule for its updates to the school nutrition stand - ards last spring. Operators and their manufacturer partners are currently paying special attention to the first added sugar phase, which will begin at the start of next school year and will put product-based added sugar restrictions on breakfast ce- reals, yogurts and flavored milk. During a session led by Shannon FitzGerald, registered dietician and nu- tritionist at the Institute of Child Nu- trition, manufacturers in the audience shared how they were already offer- ing certain products that would fit the new added sugar restrictions and are working on adding additional products to fit the new standards as well. K-12 operators were also quick to point out that they too were already implement- ing changes to their menu ahead of the 2025-26 school year to get a head start on getting used to the new regulations. FitzGerald is hopeful that while the added sugar restrictions may be tough for some students (especially the older ones) to get used to initially, eventually, they will come around. She saw this play out with the imple- mentation of the 2010 Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act (HHFKA) which intro - duced a wave of nutritional changes to school meals programs in the early 2010’s. During that time, FitzGerald was school nutrition director at a dis- trict in Ohio and noticed that while the high school students struggled with the changes brought on by HHFKA, the younger students were more accepting of the new regulations since they were not used to the way things had been pri-
3 Big Takeaways From SNIC 2025 K-12 operators and manufacturers met in Phoenix this week for The School Nutrition Association’s first conference of the year to discuss how they could work together to tackle current challenges impacting the segment. BY BENITA GINGERELLA K -12 school nutrition oper- ators and manufacturers gathered in Phoenix this week for the School Nu- trition Industry Confer- ence (SNIC) put on by the School Nutri- tion Association. Over the course of the conference, school nutrition operators
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PHOTO BY BENITA GINGERELLA
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