Krista Preusser puts tzatziki sauce on a gyro during lunch Thursday at the Cloverleaf High School cafeteria. Preusser and other kitchen employees arrive at the school by 7 a.m. to begin preparing lunches for students and staff. (LOREN GENSON / GAZETTE)
Carrie Beegle is taking the quality of food at Cloverleaf Schools up a notch while saving money. Beegle has instituted culinary chef uniforms for staff and improved the quality of food while becoming self-sufficient financially.
Despite her accomplishments, she’s often simply referred to as “the lunch lady.”
Beegle, Cloverleaf’s food service director, has imposed a number of changes to the menu since joining the district in the fall of 2010.
The biggest change is the way food is prepared — fresh, not prepackaged. She’s also managed to make the food service program self-sustaining, meaning her department doesn’t need money from the school district’s general fund for support.
“When I came here, we were $130,000 in the red,” Beegle said. “That money was coming out of the school’s general fund where it could have been put to different use.
“The goal for me was to break even.”
That happened at the end of the 2012-13 school year, when the district brought in $6,000 more than it spent. Last school year, the food service department finished with $55,000 in the account.
“The goal now is to be self-sustainable, to be able to draw from our own funds when we need to purchase kitchen equipment,” Beegle said.
How was the school able to produce better lunches at a lower cost? Hard work and creativity, Beegle said.
“Its labor-intensive and you have to have the right people,” she said. “The best way to do things is not always the easiest way.”
Best foods at lowest price
Mary Curran prepares chicken parmasean that will be used in chicken parmasean sandwiches. Curran and other kitchen employees arrive at the school by 7 a.m. to begin preparing fresh lunches for students and staff. (LOREN GENSON / GAZETTE)
Staff arrives about 7 a.m. every school day to begin preparing lunches.
“Without the staff here, it wouldn’t be possible,” Beegle said.
Many vegetables and rice can be purchased through government commodity programs for pennies on the dollar. Because of that, Beegle is able to spend more money on the main entrees and keep a salad bar stocked with fresh fruit and vegetables.
Beegle also works with vendors and looks for sales and discounts. Whenever she can get a quality product at a lower cost, she jumps at it.
Because she’s proactive in searching out the best foods at the lowest price, she’s able to serve 1,600 meals a day at a cost of between $2.25 and $3.25 each.
On Thursday, the cafeteria served stuffed green peppers, and the splurge was on good-size peppers, Beegle said. The peppers were purchased through a vendor’s local produce program, meaning they came from a farm within a 100-mile radius of the high school. Beegle then put 3 ounces of ground beef in each and whole-grain rice.
“They’re getting a vegetable, a protein and a grain,” Beegle said. “And the rice and the meat were the smallest expense, so we could splurge on getting nice, fresh peppers.”
Other produce comes to the school locally. The apples are supplied year-round from Bauman Orchards in Rittman and fresh lettuce is from Medina Creative Housing’s newest project, Medina Creative Produce — a hydroponic lettuce mix grown in a greenhouse.
“We want to buy locally wherever we can, and we want to buy fresh wherever we can,” Beegle said. “You’re getting kids fresh produce and you’re supporting the local economy.”
In an effort to use more fresh ingredients, Beegle said she hopes the district can grow its own produce on the school campus in greenhouses and tie the growing into science and math curriculum.
The idea of getting cafeteria food to tie into curriculum isn’t new for Beegle, who said she enjoys writing grants and finding creative ways to save money.
‘Cloverleaf Chicken Coop’
This year, the school received a $5,000 grant to purchase chickens for the “Cloverleaf Chicken Coop” project.
Beegle, who already had chickens of her own at home, is hosting the coop on her property. Students in AP Biology will help manage the coop as part of their coursework.
“They’re studying genetics, so they told me which breeds to buy,” she said.
Students will pair different hens and roosters to analyze which traits of each species are dominant and which are recessive. Eggs that are not used to produce chicks will be used in the cafeteria.
“This teaches kids about where the food comes from, it’s a science project and we use the eggs. It’s a win all the way around,” Beegle said.
Healthy cooking
Jill Shamus serves up salisbury steak and potatoes to students in the lunchline at Cloverleaf Elementary School on Thursday morning. (LOREN GENSON / GAZETTE)
Beegle is even working with some of the youngest Cloverleaf students and their families to bring healthy cooking and food knowledge into home kitchens. Cloverleaf students in kindergarten through fifth grade can participate in the six-week Tot Chef program run by Beegle and her husband, executive chef Greg Beegle.
Children, accompanied by a parent, are taught kitchen safety and learn how to cook meals with supervision. Parents are given the skills to help train the little chefs.
“The parents learn that their children can help them cook and learn ways to include them in the kitchen,” she said. “At the end of the class, we sit down together to eat our meals and talk about what we learned.”
The fee for the course is $20, but the cost is waived for students who receive free/reduced-price school meals.
“We have a rule in every class: You have to try at least one new thing,” Beegle said.
At the end of the course, students leave with a cookbook of recipes to make at home with their family.
“It’s such a great feeling when students come up to me and say, ‘I cooked at home last night,’” Beegle said.
School support
Tori Meece, a senior at Cloverleaf High School, puts a salad together at the school’s salad bar on Thursday. Meece said the homemade chipotle sauce the school serves is her favorite dressing. (LOREN GENSON / GAZETTE)
Beegle said the secret to the success of healthy incentives is a staff and administration that support her goals.
“The staff jumped on board with the vision, and the administration supports us all the way. It’s a great combination,” she said.
During lunch Thursday, Tori Meece, a senior, was able to pile a salad high with vegetables, her favorite entree.
“I get a salad a lot. I love the chipotle sauce,” she said.
Andrew Winter, the school’s band director, said he eats cafeteria food three to four times a week.
“It’s really good. I wouldn’t have eaten it before, but Carrie and her staff made a lot of changes and it’s much better,” he said.
“The staff is so accommodating and the food is presented nicely. It’s food the kids want to eat,” he said.
Eric Nemeth, a senior, said he noticed an improvement in the food over the last few years.
“My favorite is the Chinese food. It’s really good,” he said.
At Cloverleaf Elementary School, Trisha Coffey and her fiance Zak Corron stopped by to visit Coffey’s son, Ayden Smiley, 6, during lunch.
The family dined on the cafeteria offerings.
“It tastes much better than when I was in school,” Corron said.
Joyce Meyer, head cook at the elementary school, said she works hard to find items kids like to eat that are healthy.
“The little ones are big on presentation. If it doesn’t look good, they won’t eat it,” she said.
The elementary lunch line has a salad bar, and Meyer said students are much more likely to finish their salads when they take part in making it themselves.
Meyer recently pioneered a “Banana Breeze” frozen treat that students love. The idea came to her as the bananas were starting to ripen, she said.
“We didn’t want them to go bad, so we put them in the freezer,” she said.
After they were frozen, she chopped them up, added milk and a little brown sugar and created a frozen treat that still meets nutritional guidelines for a fruit side.
“I love to see the smile on their faces when they try the food and they love it,” she said.
Beegle said that’s the reason everyone on her staff got into the school food business.
“I love it when kids see me out at the grocery store and they say, ‘Hi, lunch lady!’ ” Beegle said. “I love it, being called a lunch lady. It’s such an honorable occupation.”
Contact reporter Loren Genson at (330) 721-4063 or lgenson@medina-gazette.com. Follow her on Twitter @lorengenson.
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