Beyond capacity: The future of K-12 kitchen performance

School nutrition leaders are being asked to do more than ever before.

Students increasingly expect fresh, flavorful meals that reflect broader food trends, while districts face persistent labor shortages, aging facilities, tight budgets and growing pressure to deliver consistent experiences across multiple campuses. At the same time, school meal programs are balancing nutrition standards, operational efficiency and rising participation rates.

The challenge is no longer simply producing enough meals. It’s building systems that can consistently deliver quality, flexibility and efficiency despite limited resources.

As districts look for ways to build more resilient operations, many are reevaluating everything from kitchen workflows and staff training to the role technology can play in standardizing processes and reducing complexity.

Kent Nanni, active marketing chef for foodservice equipment manufacturer Unox, believes consistency is at the center of that conversation. Here, Nanni talks with SmartBrief about how school districts are addressing staffing shortages, menu innovation, kitchen design and operational standardization — and why technology is increasingly seen as a tool to help K-12 programs do more with less.

SB: When you talk about “kitchen performance” in today’s K-12 environment, what does that mean beyond simply producing meals?

KN: The biggest factor for performance in any kitchen, especially in school kitchens, is consistency; making sure you have your process standardized. If you have different locations, they’re all doing different things and cooking in different ways. It can get quite convoluted. But if you have a standardized process, that’s probably the biggest support for a high level of performance, not just in school kitchens but in every kitchen out there.

SB: With USDA data indicating that over half of schools are facing foodservice staffing shortages, how have labor shortages changed the way school districts evaluate kitchen operations and equipment investments?

KN: Staffing issues obviously have a pretty dramatic effect on most schools – not just in terms of shortage, but in the quality of the people you have coming in and who you get to retain and stay in the program. The biggest way to counteract those issues is technology.

Most of your equipment manufacturers are really pushing for standardized programmable equipment that can cut down on guesswork and provide quicker cooking and better processes from one stage to the next. Most schools are really leaning into technology to counteract short staffing because, with short staffing, you don’t have time to rotate trays, play with programming or figure out how to cook. But once you can get it standardized and lock in your practices and programs, that’s probably the best way to combat it.

However, simplicity of equipment use is also a factor. If you’re implementing a technological equipment push but the equipment isn’t easy to use, you’re going in the wrong direction, for sure. When I train my schools, that’s my biggest push: going and showing them how to standardize their programs and lock them in so that if two workers are out when you’re already short-staffed, you can pull in any other staff member at the school and say,, “Hey, put the food in the oven and push this picture of the button of the food.”

The best part of what UNOX focuses on is the simplicity of use. When I go in to do a training, it only takes an hour and a half to turn a 78-year-old lunch staffer into a combi oven master because our controllers are so simple to use. Those ovens offer four options that let you do anything you can imagine between 86 and 500 degrees. But the way we have it set up, it’s easy to use as a convection oven. The only addition we have is that you can add moisture or extract it when needed.

SB: As participation rates grow and K-12 lunch periods remain compressed, what operational strategies can teams implement to speed up service lines while maintaining food quality, safety and nutrition standards?

KN: Schools are really pushing for a bit more batch cooking, fresher foods and higher quality, and I love seeing that. But if you’re trying to batch out too much, that’s going to slow you down a little bit, since most schools are trying not to cook everything five hours ahead of time, throw it in the holding cabinet, and hope it survives.

You have to have a mix of your timing throughout your kitchen, and a big part of that’s always going to count on your flow. So, compared to a line that has your oven line up front running next to a holding line next to a service line, that is going to be a lot more efficient and quicker to serve than if you have ovens back in another room, and then you have to run back and forth. That’s going to play in with your staffing, too. If there’s one worker out sick, you’ve got one cook back there and two people running a line with 300 kids coming through in an hour. It’s tough. But I think most of that is really about the flow of your kitchen and how you can make it as efficient as possible. Using your equipment will be the biggest tool in your belt for combating speed.

SB: Can you speak to the value of multi-functional equipment when trying to keep up with students’ shifting food preferences? How can school nutrition programs expand menu variety and scratch-cooking capabilities while operating with limited labor and resources?

KN: You have to have multifunctionality with your equipment for sure. Our schools really deal with a shortage of labor, not enough space, a problematic footprint and equipment restrictions. That’s why they need to invest in equipment that’s going to give them versatility. For example, combi ovens steam, smoke, poach, bake, dehydrate, air fry – anything you can imagine between 86 and 500 degrees. That means your menu can constantly switch. For most school kitchens, the menu is limited by the kitchen. And that’s the opposite of the way we want things to work.

I’m almost amazed these days that people walk into a kitchen every day to convection ovens that have no programming. Every day, the staff walks in trying to remember how they cooked that menu item the same way two weeks ago. The poor kids never see the same product. And God forbid if the poor staffer wants to take a day off, and then someone else comes back there that’s never cooked it, and they’re trying to figure out how to work this convection oven when you could have that pre-programmed and standardized so all they have to do is push buttons and roll. I really push people to maximize their production. Being able to cook green beans, rice, pasta and turkey all at the same time cuts production down by hours each day.

SB: Many older school kitchens face physical space constraints. What approaches are helping schools maximize productivity and flexibility within existing spaces?

KN: It has to be updated technology. I’ve gone into schools where they have a giant range taking up all this room, and then they have one oven on the side, and I say, ‘Holy moly, that’s never going to work for you guys.’ That’s what’s nice about UNOX specifically. We’re a boilerless (steam generator) system. We’re actually less wide than a standard convection oven. So you could remove a convection oven and put a combi oven in that same footprint, and you can even stack another one on top of it because our units are stackable.

SB: Looking ahead five to 10 years, what is the most critical shift in K-12 foodservice leaders need to make today to build more resilient, efficient kitchens for the future?

KN: There are a couple of main things. The one thing I really stress with my foodservice directors is standardizing their operations. All of our ovens can connect together, so the foodservice directors can see all their ovens across all of their schools, see what they’re cooking, see when they’re cooking, and they can use that to communicate more. If an elementary school over here is having trouble with their tater tots, but the middle school loves their cooking setting for tater tots, a foodservice director can say, ‘Hey – how about we try their setting at the elementary school?’ It offers connectivity with kitchens across your entire district.

My biggest piece of advice is to call your equipment representative back in to do training if you are having trouble or if you’ve hired new staff – and that goes for whether you are using Unox products or if you choose a different manufacturer. Your manufacturer should want to help your school system’s foodservice teams be successful.