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Why K-12 School Cafeterias Are Automating Food Safety
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were significant disruptions to K-12 school food services nationwide. School nutrition directors were forced to rapidly adapt their school cafeteria and kitchen operations to continue feeding students while maintaining standards for K-12 nutrition. Key to these adaptations was their realization that a Sensing-as-a-Service solution would not only solve many of the crises brought on by the pandemic, but more importantly for the longer term, significantly improve efficiencies of time, money, and labor by replacing outdated manual pen-and-paper methods of temperature monitoring with the power of connected IoT technologies.
In early 2020, K-12 districts closed schools as part of initial COVID-19 quarantine measures. Many school nutrition directors had to quickly transition away from traditional cafeteria service to alternative models, such as grab-and-go, curbside pickup, and in some areas, home delivery. Implementing these unorthodox methods required unprecedented logistical planning, particularly safeguarding the safety and nutritional quality of student meals and restructuring labor to ensure proper distribution and delivery.
Inventory shortages and shipping delays severely impacted the K-12 food supply chain. At times, essential ingredients were hard to come by, such as milk, meat, and whole grains. Shortages of gloves and packaging materials also compromised safe food preparation and delivery. Many schools were forced to simplify their menus and offer less variety due to unreliable product availability. These disruptions challenged school nutrition directors to consistently meet the nutritional standards of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP).
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