Luna calls the program “Food for Thought.”
Behind the scenes, the operation runs on a carefully timed system. Luna and his team use a color-coded dot system to keep track of which meals are headed to which schools. Purple, for example, identifies meals for St. Thomas Aquinas, while other colors correspond to other schools.
The kitchen crew begins with the day’s menu and starts with the prep that takes the most time.
“Sauces are obviously started first because sauces take time,” Luna says.
From there, Luna’s cold crew makes sandwiches, while the daily menu includes two hot entrees, a vegetarian option, a sandwich and a salad. Depending on the school, students can also choose from hot paninis, pasta, soup and a selection of snacks, including baked chips, guacamole, cheese and crackers, and hummus with pretzels.
Luna also handles the logistics of the lunch program, from communicating with parents to managing each student’s lunch account. The company contracts with schools, but parents set up their student’s lunch account and add money as needed. At lunch, students enter their lunch numbers and pay for their food through the account.
“Some parents will, you know, throw $20,000 into an account, and other parents will add weekly,” he says.
When Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Caterers begins working with a new school, the company receives a list of enrolled students and their parents’ email addresses. The company then contacts parents to explain the lunch program and how to set up their children’s accounts.
“We handle all questions from parents, and we let the teachers concentrate on being teachers and the admins concentrate on being admins,” he says. “My older sister and my mother were in education, and it’s just something that I know how hard it is.”