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The latest foodservice management practices, food-safety news and more.
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Sodexo tells GWU foodservice employees layoffs inevitable
Union representatives received email from Sodexo stating that two J Street workers would be laid off because of university-mandated cutbacks. But the university, facing a $20 million budget shortfall, says it has not directed the contractor to make any changes to the foodservice program.
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Two Chicago schools test program to track students’ food choices
The Healthy School Meals Realized through Techonology (SMART) Schools is a program designed by preventative medicine experts to track students’ food choices when cafeteria workers scan a student’s identification card and log their food selections. Parents receive a monthly report card that summarizes the food selections that their children have made.
Study published in Pediatrics indicates that children and teens consumed an additional 84 calories and 230 calories, respectively, on days that they eat pizza. However, researchers also indicated that the only time that eating pizza didn’t increase kids’ daily caloric intake is when it was consumed at a school cafeteria. This could be due to schools using healthier ingredients, such as whole-wheat crusts and more vegetables.
Providence Health & Services, based in Portland, is phasing such drinks out of its hospitals, clinics and business offices over a two-month period. According to the healthcare system, Providence would be the largest such organization on the West Coast to make such a change. The ban includes drinks sweetened with HFCS, sucrose, dextrose and even cane sugar.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine slams Greenville (S.C.) Memorial Hospital for its contract with Chick-fil-A, calling it one of the “six worst public hospital food environments” out of more than 200 medical centers surveyed. But the hospital’s administrators have taken issue with the report, calling it flawed and suggesting that the PCRM has ignored a number of steps the hospital has taken to improve patent and community health.
The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center at Mission Bay will employ 25 robots to traverse the 800,000-square-foot hospital, carrying food trays, pharmaceuticals, and even blood and tissue samples to appropriate parts of the facility. Employees who used to make such deliveries will be assigned other, more meaningful duties, say administrators.