Meal Transportation Between Buildings

Our group members were curious: how does the prepared food transportation between school buildings work, as not all of our schools have kitchens?

Culinary Express responded with this information:

Oakwood makes and cooks hot entrees for Sunset Hill and Birchview. North Woods makes and cooks hot entrees for Greenwood. All other buildings have kitchens. The hot entrees are put into hot holding cabinets that are made for transport. Once the containers arrive at the satellite school, they are moved into the school and plugged in. Prior to serving, a temperature check is conducted to assure food safety. Only cold prep is done in the satellite kitchens as they are not built to handle more.

The hot carts for Greenwood get picked up at 8:20am (first lunch at 10:10) in the morning and the hot carts for Birchview (first lunch at 10:45) and Sunset Hill (first lunch at 10:45) get picked up at 9:00am. Cooking for these sites typically start 1-1 1/2 hours before the carts get picked up, depending on the menu item. After the hot carts are picked up for satellite sites, Oakwood and North Woods will then start prepping/cooking for the onsite portion. With onsite kitchens being able to do batch cooking, it is hard to give an exact time as to how much longer a food item could potentially be held in the warmers. For example, pizza is batch cooked by onsite kitchens. Pizza is a harder item to transport. The homemade pizza sticks do hold up better than a pizza slice or round. However, on like taco meat or spaghetti/alfredo sauce days, onsite kitchens will be making larger batches of these and holding them. Hope this helps clarify some of the timing portion.