Oregon school lunches disrupted by supply chain woes

With supplies short on hand, school lunch cooks had to improvise to get food out to hungry students.

“There are products we’re only supposed to serve for child nutrition, and all of the pizza was zeroed out — it was nothing — so basically I did pizza that I put my own toppings on,” said Tanya Corta, a kitchen supervisor with Imbler School District, in Union County. “We’re running on a tight ship here.”

Tight ship or not, the supply chain woes leave little certainty about the menus — typically planned a month in advance — and whether or not the ingredients will even be available. That puts extra strain on kitchen workers and supervisors.

“I’ll have to do a last-minute menu change and that’s sometimes hard — and sometimes impossible,” Corta said. “Its difficult and stressful, but we still get those kids fed.”

From shortchanged orders to out-of-stock staples and favorites, schools are making do with less. As well, the time it takes to order supplies has increased dramatically as filling the pantry now involves dealing with multiple vendors to fulfill ingredient requirements.

Michelle Glover, business director at La Grande School District, said creating orders once took little over an hour on Fridays. That same order now takes as long as four to five hours to finish as kitchen supervisors scramble and broker with different suppliers to get ingredients shipped out in time for next week’s lunch.

Even then, some supplies might be entirely out of stock, or orders arrive with less than was expected.

“Our orders are not being fully fulfilled, and so that’s what’s caused the real challenges,” Glover said. “It looks like it’s coming and it doesn’t arrive. We don’t get any notice in advance, so they’re having to be creative and on their toes with alternate plans in place.”

Even though school districts uses different suppliers and ordering methods, the same issue has been affecting many school districts, including Imbler. Corta said each week is a struggle to get orders in. She now orders two weeks ahead of time, a method she employs to help dampen the effects of a supply chain that has been disrupted by worker shortages at manufacturing and processing plants, truck drivers shortages, and delayed shipments from cargo ships.

She’s not alone. Schools both big and small across Eastern Oregon have suffered similar supply chain woes. Those issues aren’t limited to food. At La Grande High School, foam lunch trays have been particularly difficult to procure, leading to lunches being served in plastic bags as opposed to trays. The school is short one kitchen staffer, meaning lunches that once offered a variety of foods such as enchiladas or pizza have been diminished to sandwiches nearly every day of the week.

“They are definitely struggling with the supply chain for food items so definitely menu preparation (suffers),” Glover said. “If we’re planning on serving this and then product doesn’t arrive, or comes in short, and it’s not enough to cover all sites — we are having to be flexible in meal preparation.”

Pendleton shared similar worries about supply chain problems — though the situation is varied as different districts broker with different suppliers for food.

“We weren’t able to get hamburger patties for a while, and so we would substitute chicken nuggets or burritos,” said Suzanne Howard, director of nutrition services with Pendleton School District. “Or, we weren’t able to get pizza for a while, so again we would either not serve them that day if we had other options to serve, like at the middle school/high school we served more than one. And then otherwise we would just have to replace it.”

Programs such as the Summer Seamless Option — which provides free lunches to lower-income students over the summer — were also hit by supply chain interruptions. Those programs will continue to operate and feed students, according to Howard.

Still, the districts aren’t worried about having to deny students lunch just yet.

“We’re not always able to serve what I have on the menu, but we always have a backup. I feel a lot more fortunate than what I’m hearing in other parts of the country,” Howard said.