Since 2011, Better 4 You Meals (B4YM) has provided schools throughout Southern California with an array of food services, ensuring that students gain access to meals with the highest nutritional content possible. To ensure the continued quality of its offerings, Better 4 You Meals operates a Menu Advisory Committee (MAC) which invites school staff members to offer feedback and ideas on how the company can improve.The committee is available to all members of staff in schools that receive B4YM services, including teachers, meal coordinators, and school administrators. The MAC meets four times per year in the B4YM offices to offer constructive feedback on samples of B4YM food, and to reinforce the company’s and its clients commitments to serving the interests of students throughout Southern California.MAC participants not only get to play a role in designing future B4YM meal services, but also meet peers from other schools with whom they can share insights. Further, attendees learn more about the National School Lunch Program, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, and the School Breakfast Program, in addition to developing a greater understanding of the federal and state mandates that schools must follow.
Better 4 You Meals provides breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks to students at schools across Southern California with a focus on health and nutrition and compliance with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). A facilitator of the School Breakfast and National School Lunch Programs (administered by the USDA), Better 4 You Meals offers an assortment of resources designed to promote health and engage students. Student engagement initiatives include Ticket 2 Wellness.The Ticket 2 Wellness game encourages students to partake in healthy school lunches by providing them with incentives via potential rewards and prizes. The game involves the random placement of special Wellness Tickets on school-provided meals throughout the month, presenting students with multiple chances to win. Students who receive meals containing a ticket will receive a prize by notifying the front office.Office personnel must contact Ticket 2 Wellness staff to redeem tickets and prizes take approximately one week to ship. Individual prizes vary and may include gift cards or free dress days. Furthermore, program staff can work directly with schools to determine the best prizes for their students.
Better 4 You Meals is a Commerce, California, catering company that provides school children throughout the greater Los Angeles area with healthy meal options that also taste good. Better 4 You Meals emphasizes innovative school food offering strategies, including the Universal School Breakfast concept. This approach centers on school programs that provide students with breakfast at no charge, whatever their eligibility status. The strategy is designed to enable maximum participation in programs that ensure that students of low-income are receiving balanced nutrition at the start of their academic day. It stands in contrast to traditional school breakfast offerings in which the meal is either paid for fully by students, provided at a reduced cost, or free. Unfortunately, traditional programs deter participation in programs by schoolchildren, particularly as stigmas associated with economic status come to the fore in junior high and high school. Through a Universal School Breakfast program, the sense that food programs are for “poor kids” is eliminated. The program enables schools with a significant majority of students eligible for reduced-price and free meals to make up for the cost of losing paid meals through increased participation rates and a process of receiving federal reimbursements. It is important to note that schools must achieve National School Lunch Program approval before qualifying for subsidy/reimbursement programs.
