Rio Rancho Public Schools would like to inform you about some temporary challenges our food service vendor, Southwest Foodservice Excellence (SFE), is currently facing. These challenges are not impacting the high quality of food we are providing, but they are temporarily impacting some of our service methods and menus at the schools.
As you may have heard on the news or experienced in your own daily life, our country’s food supply chain has been dramatically impacted by shortages in both labor and products. Unfortunately, K-12 child nutrition hasn’t been immune to this impact. At this time, SFE is experiencing issues with staffing and food supply. While many of these issues, such as product availability are out of SFE’s control, RRPS is assisting SFE to implement some mitigation strategies so they may continue to provide our students with great meals every day.
Please be advised that your child may experience last minute menu changes at our schools. All school menu options will still meet all nutritional requirements and will be locally sourced whenever possible, but they may be slightly different selections than posted on our website. In addition, at the high school level, SFE will temporarily close the coffee bars and other ancillary food service lines so they may concentrate their staff and products on the main food service line which offers approximately seven menu choices per day.
In addition, as a reminder, all school meals are free this year. The free meals are served by SFE in our school cafeterias and our grab-n-go pick up locations for virtual students. Please note that the food and snack bars operated by DECA or other school groups do not offer free meals, as their services are intended for fundraising purposes.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as SFE and our nation work through these temporary supply chain and labor shortages.
Learn more about student meal requirements and services by watching the recording of the Aug. 19 Parent University.