Calculating Facility Size

When estimating the size of the facility, the FSD team created a process document for each recipe used in the menu cycle.

This information, along with purchasing histories of the warehouse and the Regional PKs provided the data required to estimate the size of storage, cold and hot prep, cooking equipment size, and the packing and dispatch area specifications in the CC design. The more common method to determining facility size is to multiply a square foot per meal formula, like 1.5 or 1.8 times the meal count. Using a menu and production forward system provides a much more accurate determination of the facility needs to support the flow of food.

Procurement

Local Procurement Opportunities

The CC will also expand opportunities in procurement of locally and regionally produced ingredients. The relationships with local farmers for produce, which currently operates based on annual projections of products that are menued during the school year, operating with a weekly offering system, may expand to contracting specific crops like tomatoes, hard squash, and dried beans that can be purchased in volume and processed in the CC during the summer for use during the school year.

Commodities

The move to CC will also impact how the FSD allocates their USDA Commodity allocation. The FSD receives approximately $500,000 in USDA commodity allocation. The FSD expects to transfer more of their allocation to DoD, eliminating the reliance on pre-cooked meats like chicken and beef meatballs, which are procured through USDA processing. Pre-cooked diced chicken is featured in many recipes and shifting these types of key ingredients to commercial raw purchases to be cooked in-house will be the final step in what has been a steady shift to the use of raw proteins since the inception of the program.

Since 2009-10, eliminating processed meats has been a priority for the FSD:

The CC facility design was intentionally designed to use raw proteins and may be the first large school district in the United States to fully discontinue use of pre-cooked USDA commodity chicken.

Dock Area

The dock area of the CC will receive food and supplies into bulk storage as well as dispatch the FSD trucks to the sites from the large refrigerated dispatch space adjacent to the docks. Two docks are incoming, four docks are outgoing, and the three smaller roll-up doors are for trash, recycle and compost.

Above: Illustration of dock area

Below: Equipment plan for receiving, breakdown, and dispatch

This results in a greater product yield due to eliminating the initial dry heat cooking, and results in a moister perfectly cooked product. Additionally, the Satellite kitchens will have less cleaning and much more efficiency.

With the shift to sous vide, inventory management will include “finished-goods” inventory, which was never possible in the past. Because of the extended shelf life, ingredients that can be cooked sous vide in large batches can be stocked in inventory for 21-28 days, which will create great efficiency in the overall system and also creates more potential for production timelines, which in the past were limited to two-days with shipping the night before service.