Health-e Habits
Inspiring others to lead healthier lives
USDA Updates CACFP Meal Patterns
On April 25, 2016, the USDA Food and Nutrition Service set forth new guidelines for the CACFP meal patterns for schools, going into effect October 1, 2017. Recently, the USDA issued a memo offering a transition period of one year for schools to adapt to the new...
School Foodservice: Improving Efficiency, One Cake at a Time
After 22 years working in school foodservice and nutrition, I decided to start a consulting company in 2002. I had been conducting customer service training in school districts nationwide, designing dining rooms in my district and generally having a blast for 22 years...
The Right Tools Can Help You Save Time and Money
You can only work so many hours in a day. As a business person responsible for ensuring efficient use of resources every day, how you manage your limited bucket of time is critical. Your time well spent can impact the productivity of everyone else in your...
School Lunch Menus, Money and the Environment
A recent article highlighted the importance of efficient and effective school menu planning. This school district in California reinvented its school lunch program and not only increased the nutrition of its meals for students, but saved money and reduced its carbon...
Celebrating 5 Years with Meg Chesley, CEO
Most people imagine school lunches the same: long, rectangular tables, white walls covered in posters and a long line of kids uninterested in the food being served. However, Meg Chesley, CEO of Health-e Pro, had a different vision for school lunches. Meg wanted to...
Standardized Recipes: Get Those Recipes Under Control!
Why Standardize Your Recipes? A true standardized recipe is a recipe that has been tried, tested, evaluated and adapted for use by a food service professional. It produces a consistent quality and yield every time when the exact procedures, equipment, and ingredients...
30-Minute Marketing: How Minutes a Day Can Make A Difference
What is a Brand? Simply stated, a brand is a promise to consumers. It communicates what your customer can expect to receive when they purchase your product or service. The brand promise is more than just tangible products and services, more than marketing. It also...
Why Health-e Meal Planner?
Why Health-e Meal Planner? ...because we believe that menu planning drives your business. When you get right down to it, your menu is sitting in the driver’s seat of your school foodservice program. Imagine your day without a menu! Your customers wouldn't know what...
The Trouble With Grains
Banishing the #1 Challenge to Administrative Review Compliance Are you stressing over your upcoming administrative review? As a multi-state reviewer over the past 5 years, I’ve looked at hundreds of menus across the United States and they all seem to have one thing in...
What to Feed Kids Who Eat Gluten-Free
When we think of making a menu that kids will like, we think of pizza, hamburgers, burritos, and pasta. We think of pancakes, waffles, muffins, and sweet rolls. We think of things common to the standard American diet. Unfortunately for someone who has Celiac disease,...