Marriott to Serve Lunch at Schools

The Lynwood Unified School District, which has been losing an estimated $200,000 a year in its food service operation, has signed an agreement with a private company to manage the service with a promise to cut losses and produce a profit.

School officials signed a one-year contract for an estimated $97,000 with the Marriott Corp. school food service division. The contract becomes effective Nov. 1 with options to renew it every year.

In addition to the monetary loss, officials say that because of inefficient operation they have been unable to feed the more than 14,000 students on 12 campuses during the allotted lunch periods. Students have regularly complained about long serving lines and bad cafeteria food.

“The kids should be happier and the operation should be much more efficient,” school board President Richard Armstrong said. “After the first year of operation we should also be able to balance our (food service) budget.”

District Assistant Supt. Clifford Koch said Marriott expects to do a number of things to make the operation more efficient and profitable.

Marriott has promised “to speed up the (cafeteria) lines and make it (food services) a more effective operation,” said Chris Werner, the food division’s vice president of sales and client relations.

But in order to reduce the time the students spend purchasing food, the company might consider placing food on carts and carrying it to some of the students in the schoolyard, Werner said.

Students also will be able to choose from a variety of foods, including barbecue ribs and pizza.

“It will not be the typical cardboard pizza, but the students will be able to add their own toppings that will include bacon, Canadian bacon and pineapple,” Werner said.

To sharpen students’ appetites, the company offers what it calls the Grand Marketplace food bazaar, which features eight separate menus including a salad bar, hamburgers, tacos, tostadas, deli sandwiches, french fries, fruit, vegetables and milk, Werner said.

All food served by the company meets state and federal nutritional requirements, school officials said.

Because the quality of the food will improve, the district expects to attract more student buyers, Koch said, thereby increasing the amount of revenue.

Koch said the district food service operation, which is supposed to be self-supporting, loses money because many times more food is prepared than sold, higher prices are paid than necessary for purchases and labor costs are high.

The Marriott Corp. will be able to buy less expensive foods through volume purchasing, Werner said.

The district food service staff of 100 employees will continue to run the daily operation but a management consulting team from Marriott will provide assistance and supervision. The management team will purchase all the food and supervise its preparation. A food service director and a food service manager from Marriott will be available at all times to the district.

The district’s food service staff will be retrained to make the operation more efficient, Koch said.

Students will continue to pay the same prices for food, school officials said. But with the increased number of students buying food, the district will be able to cover the cost of the contract, Koch said.

Lynwood joins a number of other school districts that are trying a variety of ways to lure students to buy food on campus.

Marriott Corp. serves more than 200 school districts in 24 states, Werner said. Fifteen of the districts are in California, including three in Los Angeles County. They are Beverly Hills, Burbank and Compton.