Shelf Stable Meal Options from Better 4 You Meals

As a food vendor that caters primarily to students and school districts across Arizona and Northern and Southern California, Better 4 You Meals provides over 80,000 meals each school day. Currently, these meal offerings include options for all three daily meals as well as a snack. In addition to hot breakfast options, Better 4 You Meals also provides shelf-stable breakfast options that can be easily and conveniently given to students.

While students across the country return to schools, one of the offerings that the food vendor provides is the option of a shelf stable breakfast. In addition to the breakfasts being prepackaged to provide additional safety, they meet the requirements of the federal School Breakfast Program. They also allow students the flexibility to eat them when received or later when they're hungry.

The Shelf Stable Meal Kits come in three varieties, all at the same price. Each one has 40 servings and are divided into three categories- meat/meat alternative, 2-grain, and 1-grain. Generally, this allows students to choose either two 1-grain, a 1-grain and a meat alternative, or a single 2-grain. In addition, each variety kit comes with eight kinds of items, with the main difference being the choice of meat or meat alternative, which can be chicken salad, red pepper hummus, or chocolate soy butter. 

Proper Nutrition Helps Students Learn

A school meal vendor based in Commerce, California, Better 4 You Meals upholds a commitment to providing California students with nutritious and balanced meals. Established in 2011, Better 4 You Meals partners with more than 220 schools in California to provide breakfast, lunch, and snacks through the National School Lunch Program.

According to research, inadequate nutrition can lead to impaired academic and social development. When students are hungry, they have a harder time focusing and digesting the information they are presented. According to a small 2005 study, kindergarten girls who received insufficient nutrition experienced lagging social skills and lower test scores, even years later.

When students eat a nutritious and balanced breakfast and lunch, they are better prepared to learn. Teachers and principals across the country report improved behavior and better academic performance after the implementation of school breakfast and lunch programs. Due to current school closures, Better 4 You Meals offers free meal pick-up from numerous sites in southern and northern California. To view a list of northern California distribution sites, visit https://better4youmeals.com/.

What Is National Breakfast Week?

Better 4 You Meals is a USDA-approved meal vendor for more than 250 schools in five counties, including Los Angeles and Orange, as well as the Greater Bay Area. During the 2020 National Breakfast Week, Better 4 You Meals celebrated the event with its partner schools across California.

Approximately 14 million American school children participate in the National School Breakfast Program, which was established by congressional action in 1975. Since 1989, recipients of the National School Breakfast Program, including public, private, and charter schools, observe National Breakfast Week (NBW) during the first week of March.

Schools may participate by serving special items for breakfast and running awareness campaigns discussing the nutritional benefits of eating breakfast. Students may suggest new items for the school breakfast menu or create informative posters explaining the importance of a healthy breakfast. According to a survey of schools that participate in NBW, nearly all schools experienced an uptake in students using the program after the event.

Better 4 You Meals Event and Catering Services

Based in Commerce, California, Better 4 You Meals provides more than 30,000 meals to over 220 schools throughout the Los Angeles and San Bernardino region. Better 4 You Meals offers a number of additional services beyond breakfast, lunch, and after school meals for students, including meals for special events and general catering support.

General catering services include breakfast and lunch for day-long school events, such as staff training days. Popular items on the catering menu, which can be viewed in full at www.better4youmeals.com, include the Enchiladas combo and the French toast and sausage casserole. Catering services have been designed to satisfy the entire staff without harming a school’s budget.

For special school events, particularly outdoor events, such as fundraisers and graduations, the organization’s BBQ trailer is the perfect option. On-site BBQ services can be tailored to meet the needs of the student body or scaled up to account for events that welcome parents and community guests.

Finally, all schools enrolled in the Better 4 You Meals program have the opportunity to order Pick Up Stix meals every month. The healthy Asian cuisine served as part of the Pick Up Stix menu are fully compliant with National School Lunch Program (NSLP).

The Better 4 You Meals Menu Advisory Committee

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.

Ticket 2 Wellness Engages Students with Healthy Eating

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.

Universal School Breakfast - Innovative Program of Free Student Meals

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.