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PSS bids for kitchen and system upgrade
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Posted on Apr 01 2006
The Public School System will soon upgrade its high school cafeteria equipment and operation data system to align them with the school system’s primary goal of healthy and nutritious meals for public schoolchildren in the CNMI.
PSS Food and Nutrition Service acting director Dorin Salas said the Central Office will soon release a Request for Proposal to prospective vendors for the school system’s upgrade of its kitchen warmers and holding cabinets in the school area.
“The RFP will be released next week to vendors,” Salas said.
She said that PSS is also acquiring a new automated system that will allow the Food and Nutrition Service group to assess the amount or the number of the meals being purchased.
Funding for the new equipment and system will come from the High School Food Court Program Income.
Salas said that the new system will take into account the number of meals purchased by the students and adults per meal period. She added that these upgrades will also help PSS solve some of its major concerns, such as counting the number of the meals for students versus the number of the students actually taking the meals. “We hope the system will help us in the long run,” said Salas.
She said the new acquisition, the kitchen warmers and the holding cabinets, will help the Central Office maintain the right temperature for the meals being served the students every school day.
According to PSS FNS registered dietician Tina Goodwin, the Central Office has always been concerned with the proper temperature of the food the vendors are serving the schoolchildren.
Goodwin said that, since the meals served in school cafeterias come from “satellite kitchens” that are based at the respective suppliers’ company kitchens, the delivery and transportation of the food affects the temperature of the meals being served.
The dietician added that the Central Office always monitors the food condition every month. She said she and other staff members visit the kitchen of the vendors and schools to confirm whether the vendors follow the school standards when it comes to serving the food right, either hot or cold.
The Central Office distributes over 12,000 meals everyday both to private and public schools, said Goodwin.
