Served Digizine™ - Bring it On.

Marketing Minute

home with a milk, fruit, and vegetables. Now, we see more and more districts offering this to students who bring their lunches from home. This introduces them to the wonders and school meals and our opportunity to create a lifelong customer to our cafeteria. There are different ways of marketing this concept to students and families. We asked school nutrition professionals across the country how they were communicating this concept and how it’s working out:

I just love it when schools adopt trendy concepts that we see at some our favorite cafes or restaurants. If you’re like me, one choice is never enough and I will forever pick two, three, four, or more choices to add variety to my meal. A few years ago when I was working as the Marketing Supervisor for Food & Nutrition Services in Lee County, FL we launched a marketing campaign called “Lettuce Help with Lunch” to maximize participation. As a 100% CEP district long before students nationwide received meals at no charge we gave students the option to compliment their lunches from

Here’s what they had to say…

Martin County, FL Laura Holmedal, Director of Food & Nutrition

https://youtu.be/ tXjokJePZ9w

“Promoting this has saved our program money. We ended up with over a 4 million dollar fund balance while most schools unfortunately went into the red.”

Waverly, NY Joanne Shabazian “We call ours a “sidekick” and we let the teachers know it is available (plus it’s noted on our menu).”

Lee County Schools, MS Valerie Weivoda, Director of Child Nutrition

NxtGen Network A natural storyteller, Breanna Gustafson is the Director of Marketing for NxtGen Network. Breanna kicked off her career in journalism as an Assignment Editor at WCVB-TV in Boston and worked in public television on Cape Cod. Her undergraduate degree is in communications, film, and media studies. In 2018, Breanna filled the first ever Marketing Supervisor position for Food & Nutrition at Lee County Schools in Florida. Breanna has her Master’s Degree in New Media & Marketing and enjoys telling the brand stories of school districts and manufacturers across the country. Breanna Gustafson Child nutrition at Lee County Schools, MS have implemented a Lunch Box Helpers Program: “We have gotten more vegetarians to eat with us too because everyone thought you HAD to get the entree (and most entrees have a meat).” At the beginning of the year, we issued a letter to parents via every school social media page; our district webpage; and the elementary schools sent the home with students in their backpacks. It explained free meals and the Lunch Box Helpers Program.”

Getting the most for our families with Healthy Meals at No Charge!

NxtGen Network Breanna Gustafson