MERIDEN, Conn. — While the cafeteria and kitchen at Maloney High School were being cleaned almost immediately after lunch was served Friday afternoon, the auxiliary gymnasium was being set up as the new lunchroom for the next few months. Students and lunch staff will need to adjust to the change – and that adjustment will come with the help of Domino’s restaurant.
Starting Monday, the smaller gym will serve as both the cafeteria and a kitchen at Maloney due to renovations. The $107.5 million school renovation project includes demolition of the lunchroom, along with construction of a new cafeteria and kitchen facilities.
With construction taking place through the summer, school officials have planned alternatives for student lunches, including cooking some food off-site and ordering Domino’s pizza on a daily basis, Food Services Director Susan Maffe said. Accommodating the 800 students who typically buy lunch each day, Maffe said some hot meals will be prepared at Edison Middle School and transported to Maloney in time for lunch waves, other meals will be cooked in an oven at Maloney and Domino’s will be called in for support.
The pizza, however, will not be the same pizza students might be familiar with from the pizza chain.
In 2010, Domino’s launched its Smart Slice program, which features pizza that meets U.S. Department of Agriculture school lunch nutrition standards, according to Jeanne Sharp, a spokeswoman for the company.
Those USDA nutritional standards were updated in 2012, and “our Smart Slice pizza was designed around them,” Sharp said.
The pizza crust is made with 51 percent whole-wheat flour, which includes up to 4 grams of fiber, according to nutritional information provided by Sharp. The sauce contains 35 percent less sodium than typical Domino’s sauce, and is topped with “light” mozzarella cheese that contains half the fat of the traditional pizza cheese.
Maffe said Maloney will offer cheese and pepperoni options. According to Sharp’s information, the pepperoni on Smart Slice pizzas contains 33 percent less fat and 50 percent less sodium than that typically used.
This variety of Domino’s pizza is available in more than 3,900 schools across the country, Sharp said. It’s also used locally for a summer lunch program run out of New Opportunities, a non-profit organization in Meriden, Maffe said.
“I knew that New Opportunities uses (Domino’s) one day a week in the summer program, so for me this was the perfect time to try something different in the school,” Maffe said.
On Monday, the school will order 800 slices of pizza, as well as preparing 300 to 400 other meals, Maffe said.