District replaces firm providing moldy meals
POTTSTOWN » For the second time this semester, Pottstown school officials are dealing with complaints about mold on the food the district is providing to school families.
And it looks like the company that was providing the food to the district is going to get fired.
Complaints surfaced on social media over the weekend and by Monday, Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez had issued a statement regarding the problem and the district’s plans to deal with it.
“As many of you may know this is not the first report of issues with the quality of prepackaged meals we receive from a food distributor. Like you, we have been frustrated by the continued problem. We immediately began an investigation and thorough inspection of food yet to be distributed,” Rodriguez wrote in an email to parents and a statement posted on the district’s website.
“We believe the mold developed as a result of the use of whole grain breads with no preservatives that were directly pressed up against packages of cold chicken. Because of the length of time between preparation and distribution, several meals were affected,” Rodriguez wrote.
Kristin Kozik, Pottstown’s director of food services, said a food delivery from a Lancaster-based company called Smart Partners arrives frozen in Pottstown every Fridays and is immediately refrigerated. The district has no contract with the company, but orders the food every week, similar to ordering take out food from a restaurant — just a whole lot more.
Pottstown provides about 10,000 meals per week to school families, 5,000 breakfasts and 5,000 lunches, according to John Armato, the district’s director of community relations and a member of the school board.
Those families who pick up the five days-worth of breakfasts and lunches do so during pick-up times on Mondays. However those families that have the food delivered to their homes may have to wait as late as Thursday for the delivery to arrive, Kozik explained.
Franklin Elementary parent Shana Enochs said over the course of five weeks, she found mold in the food delivered by the district to her home at least three times.
“The first time it was the chicken and the next week it was the potatoes, and even the other food tasted kind of funky, and last week the rolls were completely covered in mold,” she said.
Enochs said even one juice boxes had mold on the inside. “I opened one up and poured it out and and it had black stuff floating in it, and I was like ‘nope, nope, nope’ and I threw them all out,” she said.
“I mean I worry about kids who are home alone and they may not know what mold is and what to look for,” she said. “I just thank God I am home to check if its moldy.”
“I don’t think the people who were distributing the food were opening up the boxes and checking inside,” said Enochs.
“Our staff will immediately begin inspecting every single meal before it is picked up or delivered to our families,” according to Rodriguez.
And starting this Friday, the food will no longer be provided by Smart Partners but will instead be prepared and packed by Pottstown Schools food workers.
Kozik said she will be bringing about 20 employees who were furloughed in August as classes began back to work to begin preparing and packing up the food both on Fridays and on Mondays. The the bread products will be added on Monday both to allow for fresher bread and to prevent it being packed with the other food and refrigerated over the weekend, that seems to have been the cause of the mold forming, she said.
“Our goal is to provide our families with healthy and nutritious food and to not have them worry about the freshness of the food they are receiving,” said Armato.
“We are hopeful that the transition time will be fast and seamless. Thanks to new products on the food preparation market, as well as our diligent staff who have learned new methods, we hope to provide a higher level quality of food with far better safety margins for our families,” Rodriguez wrote.
Kozik said Smart Partners was paid between $20,000 to $32,000 a week for the food it provided. Armato said the company reimbursed the district for the meals that had mold.
The change will have no impact on taxpayers given that the food service department is entirely self-sufficient.
Rather than taxpayer funds, the department runs on the funding provided by the federal Department of Agriculture, which pays for all school meals distributed in Pottstown due to the low median income in the district.
Kozik said the furloughing of the food workers had less to do with finances and more to do with the COVID-19 protocols that have been wreaking havoc with operations in all aspects of American life since March.
“We didn’t want to have that many people in the building,” Kozik said.
However, her staff has designed a food preparation and packing method which will allow the workers to remain six-feet apart by using an “assembly line” method and using all three of the district’s kitchens to split up the workers.
The high school building houses two kitchens, one for the high school and one for elementary meals, as well as the kitchen in the middle school.
As an added bonus, bringing back Pottstown workers will also save the food service budget money as it is less expensive than paying Smart Partners, Kozik said.
“We truly apologize for any inconvenience or hardship this issue has caused and rest assured, we are taking immediate, serious steps to ensure the continued safety of our students and food security throughout our community,” Rodriguez’s letter concluded.