Has this scenario ever happened to one of your cashiers?

The bell rings and before they can even sign into their POS stations, a line of kids is stretched around the whole cafeteria waiting for a hot, nutritious lunch.

In many schools across the country, students get 30 minutes or less to go through the lunch line and eat their lunch. Often times, the lunch period might even be split with recess or other school activities.

This makes the job of a cashier especially critical for making sure students get through the serving line as quickly as possible.

In America, we have become accustomed to what the typical school lunch looks like.  But in other countries, kids are served fare that's similar in some ways and strikingly different in other ways.  This curiosity led me on a search to find some of the most interesting school lunches served around the world:

March 18, 2015 - FoodServiceDirector.com announced the Top 100 School District Cafeterias as reported by Niche.  We would like to congratulate all of the Top 100 school district cafeterias that made the grade as the best in the country. Niche’s Best Food ranking is a comprehensive assessment of food quality at school districts. Their evaluation is based on survey responses from students, parents, and alumni. 

Congratulations to our three grand prize winners!

Are your school lunch heroes fighting crime and serving up justice? Well, probably not. But they sure are working hard to serve up delicious, healthy meals to students. To honor all their hard work, we're celebrating School Lunch Hero Day on May 1, 2015 with an exclusive giveaway!*

This year, three (3) Grand Prize winners will receive a complete set of the Lunch Lady Graphic Novels signed by the author, Jarrett J. Krosoczka.

Starting each day with a healthy, nutritious breakfast helps children concentrate better, be more creative, and be more physically active. But with a hectic morning schedule, how do you guarantee your child is getting a healthy breakfast?

This month's FitFuture Parent Newsletter highlights some of our favorite quick breakfast ideas that will help your morning run a little bit smoother. Check 'em out!

Put those used milk and juice cartons to good use with the Carton 2 Garden Contest sponsored by Evergreen Packaging. They're looking for schools who can come up with the most creative way to construct a garden made from recycled milk/juice cartons and share their experience.

I was very excited when asked to join some fellow Heartlanders and attend the School Nutrition Association’s Legislative Action Conference (SNA-LAC). LAC is an annual event held in Washington, DC and took place this year March 1-4, 2015. As this would be my inaugural LAC, I welcomed the opportunity to experience this event first-hand.

Last week, we asked school districts across the country how they celebrated National School Breakfast Week. We had a lot of great responses and we loved seeing all your submissions! They were full of healthy food, great ideas, and happy faces.

Here are a few school districts we believe truly embraced SNA’s ‘Make the Grade with School Breakfast’ theme:

As school nutrition professionals, we know you're always looking for tasty, yet healthy meals that meet guidelines and are also kid-approved.  One way to meet guidelines while satisfying student's taste buds is by adding more vegetables to 'tried and true' recipes like spaghetti.

This is a trick I learned when trying to make sure that my own son ate his veggies! After researching a few different spaghetti recipes, I found a hit with this one from the blog, Mommy's Kitchen. My son raves about this dish and, in our home, it's a win-win for everyone!

Since its passing in 2010, the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act (HHFKA) has brought the hot-button issue of childhood obesity and school nutrition to center stage.  For better or worse, this act has changed the entire industry from the way manufacturers formulate their food items for schools to the specific recipes that are placed on cafeteria menus.  Even news outlets, celebrity chefs and parents have joined the discussion.