HONOLULU (AP) - Hawaii’s public schools have been phasing out school kitchens, opting instead to have school lunches trucked in each day by the state Department of Education in order to cut back on costs.
The department serves hundreds of thousands of meals to students every day, with some of the meals being prepared at one school and then driven elsewhere. Of the more than 200 schools in Hawaii, 62 of them have their lunches prepared at what the state calls satellite kitchens, KHON-TV reported (https://bit.ly/1Sr3ZxE).
According to the Department of Education, the satellite kitchens allow schools to save money. Officials say eliminating the staff and equipment needed to run a full kitchen saves about $230,000 per school.
“The good thing is we’ve actually found ways like this to really challenge ourselves, make ourselves more fiscally responsible and be more efficient,” said Dann Carlson with the Department of Education.
Schools that have gotten rid of their full kitchens and have switched to relying on the Department of Education for their lunches also benefit from not having to worry about keeping up with state food safety regulations. The DOE kitchens are inspected regularly by the Department of Health.
“The Department of Education employees are very diligent especially the cafeteria managers making sure food is really prepared,” said Peter Oshiro with the Department of Health. “So it’s very rare that we have any kind of problems incidents the Department of Education kitchens.”
DOE officials said there is no difference between the meals served at school kitchens and ones served as part of the satellite kitchen program.
“A transported meal served at a satellite facility is just as safe as a meal prepared and served right there on campus,” according to the DOE.
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Information from: KHON-TV, https://khon.com
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