Our Services
K-12 Culinary Connection is a Food Service Management Company that set out in 2014 with a mission to assist small, rural school districts in meeting their food service goals. Our simple but individual approach with each of our districts lead to multiple partners within the state of Arkansas, numerous successes, and thousands of happy students. We can’t wait to show you just how our small, local company has transformed the idea of food service and school nutrition in Arkansas.
Menu Solutions
From menu planning assistance and development to production records, we have you covered! We believe menus are the heart of the Child Nutrition program, and therefore work hand-in-hand with the district’s Child Nutrition team to create a monthly menu that YOUR students approve! Each menu is perfectly individualized for your district with the assistance of your kitchen managers and Child Nutrition Director. We utilize a USDA approved software to create compliant menus and production records. Give us your feedback and let us take care of the rest!
Professional Development
We understand how difficult it can be to get all the training for your staff completed each year. Our team will conduct a back to school training for your staff, including all necessary yearly trainings that are required by the Department of Education and USDA, as well as extra trainings we have created to increase knowledge and inspire your team to take their program to another level.
Administrative & Procurement Review Support
Administrative and Procurement Reviews can be extremely stressful, especially with a busy Child Nutrition Director and ever-changing regulations. Our team has been through multiple Administrative and Procurement Reviews with our district partners and will be with you each step of the way. Our team will ensure you have all crediting information needed for meal pattern and smart snacks, will continually monitor your production records to ensure they are being filled out consistently and accurately, and will assist in Off and On-Site Reviews. While any audit can be scary and intimidating, it is always better to have partners to lean on!
Operational Expertise
One of our three tiers focuses solely on operations. Our operations team ensures all areas of your program are running smoothly and efficiently. Operations encompasses everything your Child Nutrition team has to deal with on a daily basis - menu planning, production records, budgeting, financial oversight, grant writing, equipment purchasing, and so much more. We have a dedicated staff member for your district that will help you sort through the ins and outs of your program and streamline all processes. This will allow your Child Nutrition Director to focus on what they do best - running an amazing program!
Special Events
One are favorite focuses is the promotion of the Foodservice Program. Special events bring fun into each Child Nutrition program, increases staff morale, and leads to higher participation among students. We ensure that each district completes special events throughout the school year to highlight your program. Two main events that we deliver are the Junior Chef and the Student Chef Showdown. These two events are favorites among our district partners!
Recipe Development
Our Regional Chefs are not just available for teaching and assisting - they also create innovative, tasty recipes regularly that we incorporate into each district’s menus! We are so proud of our personalized K-12 Culinary Connection recipes. Each month we focus on special menu features in each district and encourage a variety of different recipes to fit the needs of your student's tastes. Our Regional Chefs conduct regular Focus Groups as well as new recipe sample days and launches. These events are all vital to ensuring that the recipes we are creating aren’t just nutritious but, most importantly, student approved!
Financial Analysis
One of our goals at K-12 Culinary Connection is for our service to pay for itself. With our Financial Analysis Tool, we can enter in useful data from your program and show exactly where your program is performing. This information is helpful in determining what steps are needed in the near future: what programs are working and what programs need a little more attention. Through the financial analysis of your program, we not only can focus on quality assurance but also can prevent problems that we see arising.
Nutrition Education
Nutrition education is such an important part of what we do. Our goal is to ensure each of our district partners complete at least one nutrition education event a year, led by our Vice President of Nutrition. This looks different for each district and fits the needs of that particular partner. Some examples of our past nutrition education events have been hydration and protein presentations to sports teams, career classes about nutrition and school nutrition to FACS classes, and sugar and other nutrient presentations to health classes. It is important for us to play a role in all areas of your Child Nutrition program, and that includes educating your students on nutrition!