Two weeks ago, Camas High School (CHS) students returned to class after a full winter break. But things don’t just stop while students are gone. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes, especially in the CHS kitchen.
Keeping food safe and healthy for consumption is a constant priority in the kitchen; especially when almost 1,000 students at CHS eat school-served lunches each day. Sophomore Brooke Betcher is one of these students.
“The lines are very long…the SONO is really the only place I go to. I see the same people in the line every day,” Betcher said.
Sophomore Aleisi Takapu had a similar outlook.
“I get school served lunch every day, as well as breakfasts. …I usually go to the pizza line because it’s the closest to the stairs, and it’s really easy for me to get there first,” Takapu said.
CHS gets its food from a wide variety of sources. Clay Blakeman is the head chef at CHS and manages all the kitchens. He also orders food deliveries for the school.
“I order from a couple of different companies. I have a company that delivers all my meats and proteins, a company that delivers all my produce and fresh greens, a company that does bread, a company that does milk… so I put those orders in twice a week and keep track of our numbers,” Blakeman said.
Blakeman goes into detail about the process CHS goes through to prepare its food for winter break.
“My orders are usually a few weeks out, so about a month before I’ll take a look at the menu and see what we have coming up. We really focus on the week before the break, and making sure that we have as little leftovers or extras as possible,” Blakeman said.
Besides planning the food deliveries, another priority is preventing food waste approaching winter break.
“I adjust my orders appropriately so I’m not getting any fresh ingredients in that week, and I make sure not to order anything that potentially could spoil over the break. That’s why a lot of people may notice that the week before break, the salad bars might be a little skimpy,” Blakeman said.
After the week’s end, the chefs look through the leftover food and decide what is salvageable and what’s not. From there, whatever is left of usable food is put into a deep-freezer over the break. However, the goal is to keep the food as fresh as possible so the amount of food that gets frozen over break is heavily limited.
A lot of work happens behind the scenes to keep students well-fed and healthy, especially leading up to the holidays, when health and good nutrition is most important to keep up with celebrations.
