Quality comes first for San Antonio - from start to finish

Quality Comes First For San Antonio-- From Start to Finish

Getting back to basics: using quality ingredients, serving freshly prepared food, and making kids feel welcome and at home. These are the secrets to successful merchandising for San Antonio, Texas, school food service administrator Don Stinson.

Over and over again, the students in his district prove that Stinson has hit upon a winning formula. The district has a total enrollment of 56,000 students. Fifty thousand of them participate in the school lunch program every day.

Things weren't always this good, though. Stinson came to the San Antonio Independent School District in 1968, just as the district had decided to join the National School Lunch Program. He did double duty for the first few years: laying a solid foundation from which to build a top notch operation while overcoming some fairly tough resistance to the program from the community.

Schools prepare food on site

"The first thing I did was to spend the entire reserve account on quality equipment,' Stinson says. Today each of the 90 schools in his district has a self-contained, well-equipped kitchen.

"All of our meal preparation is done on site,' Stinson says. "I tried the central kitchen route once, and as the food was delivered to the school, the kids would say, "Here comes the garbage wagon.'' While kids can sometimes be overly dramatic, Stinson says in this case he almost had to agree with them.

"I don't know of any food that improves with age,' he says. "Keeping or holding a food can ruin a perfectly good dish in a hurry.

"Take a hamburger, for instance. You've got to serve a hamburger within a minute or two after it comes off the grill for it to be really good. From that time on, the lettuce and tomato get warm and the bun gets cold.

"We cannot serve a really good hamburger because of the lag time between cooking and serving, but we do a pretty good job in most other areas,' Stinson says. "We try to keep our cooks free from serving duties in order that they can continually prepare food and bring it up on the steam table just as it's needed for serving.'

Stinson recognizes that eating is as much a psychological experience as a physical one. The smell of good food cooking in the kitchen can be a powerful appetite builder. "We doubled participation overnight just by baking bread in the schools,' he says.

Staff maintains high standards

Maintaining quality standards of this caliber demands an exceptionally skilled food preparation staff. "We have both a basic and an advanced cooking school for our employees,' says Stinson.

The kitchen staff at each school consists of a manager, a pastry cook, a chief cook, and any number of food service assistants. Participation in the year-long training is on a voluntary basis and includes a one-semester apprenticeship.

Stinson and his staff do everything they can to create a cheerful lunchroom environment--one that is warm and caring, where children are treated with respect. The cafeteria managers in each of the elementary schools teach a special nutrition education course for all first and second graders.

"This way the children get to know the managers, they learn all about the kitchen, and become familiar with eating in the cafeteria,' Stinson says. All this is in addition to learning some basic nutrition concepts.

"The manager is an expert in the eyes of those students,' Stinson adds. That relationship goes a long way when it comes to building better eating habits and cultivating a taste for new foods. "A lot of times we will serve just a tablespoon of something new like broccoli or brussels sprouts so the kids can have a chance to try it.'

Stinson used that same philosophy, trying new ways in samplesized doses, to win the support of the community. "The community and even some of the school officials were against the school lunch program when we first started out,' he explains. "To convince them, I quoted nutrition experts who tied the learning ability of children to their eating habits.'

He also tried to go along with parents' wishes as much as he could, rather than fight them, and he always kept the lines of communication open. "At one time a lot of the parents wanted us to serve only Mexican food. They wanted their kids to eat the same things at school that they had at home,' Stinson says. "Well, we tried it, and within a couple of weeks they were asking me to go back to our regular menu.'

Students show their approval

In today's fast-paced, high-tech world, Stinson's operation is testimony to the fact that the basics, done well, can be highly successful.

Stinson credits his many years of entrepreneurial experience as partly responsible for the success of the school lunch program he manages today. Even though he had never eaten school lunch with any regularity until he became school food service director, he was no stranger to the food service industry.

As a school boy, he spent his lunchtime and after school hours working in his father's ice cream shop. The Double-Dip, which was strategically located across the street from Amarillo High School, Stinson's alma mater, originally sold homemade chocolate and vanilla ice cream. A formidable competitor to the school system's lunch program, the Double-Dip became a drive-in offering the usual hamburgers and french fries and eventually added inside seating.

"It was a "Happy Days' kind of atmosphere,' Stinson says. "We packed the kids in by the droves.'

Based on his school lunch participation rates, he still knows how to please the kids and keep them coming back for more.

For more information contact:

Don Stinson, Administrative Officer Food Services Department San Antonio Independent School District 806 North Salado San Antonio, Texas 78207 Telephone: (512) 227-3522

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