Almost one year ago, Lakeside announced a partnership with SAGE Dining Services to remedy issues with the existing lunch system. On February 13th, 2024, an email was sent to the families of Lakesiders regarding these changes. In the email, issues with the existing system were listed, such as students not getting enough food, families not receiving financial aid for lunches, food being wasted, and underclassmen leaving campus for lunch.
When Chef Michael Van Rooyen saw that Lakeside was transitioning to a partnership with SAGE, he decided to take on the role as the food service director at Lakeside. “My first job was washing dishes, and my second job was cooking,” he explains, adding, “I went from restaurants to hotels, and eventually into the non-commercial sector.” Over a decade ago, he joined SAGE to manage a school in New Hampshire as a food service director, explaining, “Being part of a school is nice because I get to see the same people every day, and I can be part of a community rather than somebody cooking food at a hotel or a restaurant.” After spending three years in New Hampshire and seven years at the St. Thomas School in Medina, he took the opportunity to lead SAGE at Lakeside.
His vision for SAGE is straightforward: create a successful, popular food service that is part of a community and serves quality food. The goal is to make every lunch surpass the one before. He sticks to one of his former chef’s sayings that “you’re only as good as your last meal.” To that end, SAGE has drastically changed from its initial plans to adapt to student responses. The FOB bar, better known as the pasta bar, was an addition made early in the school year. Originally, it was a variable station that would change its offerings from day to day; however, the pasta was what eventually stuck. The dessert table in the middle of the serving area, which although “looked nice,” was removed early on since “it really messed with the flow.” Since then, lines have gotten shorter.
Despite these changes, 79% of 86 Tatler poll respondents said that their ability to get food was at least somewhat impacted by long lunch lines. On average, it takes around 15 minutes for the lunch line to clear up for both first and second lunch. However, Chef Van Rooyen claims that there’s not much that he can do in order to shorten lunch lines, saying: “Things can only get so fast. To be honest, most of the problem is students not paying attention and moving in a timely manner. On our end, I don’t think there’s much more we can do.” Luckily, these lines only persist for the main entree area, with the selfserve stations not having these issues.
One main reason for the switch that Lakeside brought up when announcing the transition to SAGE was the amount of food waste seen in the previous system. Before the switch, entrees were all pre-plated, so parts of a meal that a student didn’t want would be thrown out. Thus, addressing food waste is an important part of SAGE. Much of the food that doesn’t get eaten gets repurposed, and leftovers are minimized. “If I have some unseasoned chicken leftover, I can turn it into soup chicken the next day,” notes Chef Van Rooyen. However, some food can’t be reused. Food that’s been on the line or plated won’t be reserved to students; instead, those working with SAGE sometimes take home leftovers. Despite these efforts, only 14% of polled Lakesiders believed that the existing issues with food waste were resolved by SAGE. Several hundred pounds of food go to the compost each day, more than the amount of waste produced by the previous system. (Once SAGE gets through its opening phase, SAGE will be able to track the exact amount of waste produced daily, which can be shared with the school community.) However, Chef Van Rooyen explains that a good percentage of that food isn’t edible and rather a byproduct of the food preparation process. In addition, there are simply way more Lakesiders using SAGE than the previous food system.
Another issue Lakeside sought to resolve with the transition to SAGE was that lunches were pricey, and that financial aid did not apply to most lunch options in the previous system. Around 50% of polled Lakesiders said that prices impacted their decision to buy lunch from Lakeside prior to the transition. As a result, lunch bought from SAGE was made free. However, the base tuition rate of all students was raised by $1600, averaging to $10 per meal, regardless of if they chose to get lunch from SAGE. In the email to parents and guardians about the transition, it was noted that “the daily cost of an entree, piece of fruit, Gatorade, and dessert is $12.45 — which for a growing, active child is often not enough food.”
Many students expressed disagreement with this required fee, with one student noting in the Tatler poll that the transition was “designed to lift up the already over-beloved athlete demographic on the backs of poor ungluttonous souls.” While this remains an opinion of many at the school, there are still many programs at Lakeside that are similarly included in everyone’s tuition. Sports such as golf or crew that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars yearly to participate in outside of school are largely free at Lakeside.
Even though lunches are free, breakfast and afterschool snacks are not. During the transition to SAGE, many afternoon snacks saw their prices rise. 56% of poll respondents expressed frustration with the price of breakfast and afterschool snacks. Chef Van Rooyen explains that the decision to have retail breakfast and afterschool snacks was Lakeside’s: “Some schools have full retail, then some schools like this one are just hybrid, which is the retail in the morning and all-inclusive lunch in the middle of the day.” Meanwhile, the prices for different items are determined by SAGE and are different from school to school.
Although the transition to SAGE has had its challenges, the student body has embraced the change. As Chef Van Rooyen aptly puts it: “We’ve come a long way and we’ve got a long way to go.”
