Top-10 Ways We Work to Keep School Meals Safe

School Nutrition staff are trained to manage seasonal risks like Cyclospora, or recalled products to help maintain food safety.

Bulloch County's School Nutrition Services only buys American. The school district is required to offer only domestically sourced produce, which helps ensure it receives sustainably and safely sourced produce. It also prioritizes buying locally from area farmers as availability allows. 

The school district follows the Centers for Disease Control's and Georgia Department of Public Health's guidelines, which include re-washing all fresh produce in school kitchens before serving, even items labeled pre-washed.

• Bulloch County Schools' cafeterias are one of the largest restaurants in Bulloch County with 85 employees who prepare and serve more than 1.8 million meals annually across 15 schools. 
• Last school year an average of 36.7% of students ate breakfast at the school daily and 64.2% ate school meals for lunch. 
• Breakfast is free for all of our students. Lunch is free for most. Twelve of our schools qualify for the United States Depatment of Agriculture's Community Eligibility Program. For the three schools that do not qualify, Brooklet Elementary and Southeast Bulloch Middle and High schools, families there may apply for school meal benefits to see if they qualify for free or reduced-price meals
• The school district serves an average of 10,307 meals per day. 
• The cafeterias are inspected twice annually by the Department of Public Health, just like all other restaurants, and the school district's cafeterias consistently score 98 to 100.

Bulloch County Schools uses the Mealviewer mobile application to provide families with digital school menus that are accessible for those with disabilities and translatable. The mobile application allows families to view food ingredients, caloric values, and set up alerts to be notified when menus include known allergens. Families also notify the district of any allergens during new student registration and the annual update for returning students. School counselors, the student's teacher, and the school cafeteria manager are notified of any students with known allergies. 

Bulloch County Schools' state-award-winning, Farm-to-School Program adds more locally-sourced produce and proteins grown by farmers we know to our school meals. This school year the district will spend more than $100,000 with local farmers.

Bulloch County's School Nutrition Services uses the national Food Guide for Better School Purchasing to ensure we only purchase food products with safe ingredients. 

Bulloch County's School Nutrition Services is one of only three programs in Georgia selected to pursue an Eat Real Certification. The two-year certification process for school food service leaders consists of 10 evidence-based standards that measure 34 key performance indicators in a school district’s menu plans and procurement practices to make sure that their menus are more delicious, nutritious, and responsibly sourced. Bulloch County began the certification process this summer.

Bulloch County's School Nutrition Services director, Desiree Yaeger, is a member of the Healthy Kids Collaborative, an invitation-only program by the Culinary Institute of America that seeks to accelerate innovation and deepen technical and professional expertise in school food service. She is one of only two school nutrition directors in Georgia who are members. 

Bulloch County's School Nutrition Services regularly monitors communication from food vendors, stays in contact with food distributors, and tracks any alerts to monitor produce supply chains and sourcing.