By Minh Ngoc Le & Hannah Lazarte
If you are a frequent customer of the Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) cafeteria, you will often notice that the lunchtime “specials,” such as tacos, buffalo chicken or nachos, often disappear within minutes.
While this may be disappointing for your stomach after hours of laborious school work, the limited quantities of freshly prepared meals actually play a crucial role in FVHS’ commitment to a zero-waste kitchen.
A zero-waste cafeteria aims to minimize the number of food scraps sent to landfills by prioritizing practices such as portion control, menu planning based on demand, as well as utilizing leftover ingredients creatively — all of which FVHS actively employs.
But how exactly does the cafeteria go from farm to lunch tray with minimal waste? Let’s dive deeper into the behind-the-scenes of the day-to-day process.
Daily operations
Every morning, a dedicated team of cafeteria staff, composed of district employees and student workers under the leadership of kitchen manager Patrick Ryan, establishes production goals for the day. To ensure that special menu items sell out without excess waste, the team analyzes past sales trends to determine the ideal number of portions to prepare.
“In order to have zero waste, we have to set the number that we’re gonna produce of certain things,” Ryan said. “So every kid won’t be able to get the special, because the special we cannot save. So we found that 400 to 500 portions, depending on what the special is, ensures that we sell out.”
To aid in this process, Ryan utilizes a comprehensive planning worksheet that tracks portion sizes, meal components, planned and prepared servings, leftovers, and temperature settings. This ensures that each meal is carefully accounted for and contributes to reducing food waste.
With this, the school serves between 1,300 and 1,500 meals daily, with food preparation occurring one day in advance to ensure efficiency.
Behind the scenes: A look at food preparation
Each morning, cafeteria staff arrive early to begin meal preparations. They first fill out the planning sheet, detailing what will be served the following day. Frozen items, especially for breakfast, are transferred from the freezer to the fridge to thaw overnight. When the main cook arrives, these items are heated in the ovens and placed out for serving.
The daily specials, such as chili dogs, nachos, turkey and ham sandwiches, or yogurt parfaits, are prepared at Ocean View High School’s (OVHS) central kitchen. A team of staff at OVHS begins work at 5 a.m., preparing fresh meals for the day, before distributing them to all schools in the Huntington Beach Union High School District through a delivery system.
“[The staff] get to work five in the morning and they build all [the lunches] for the day,” Ryan said. “[They] have a delivery driver that drives [the food] to all the schools every day.”
A crucial part of running a zero-waste kitchen is finding ways to use leftover ingredients efficiently.
“If we have extra ingredients from prep that day—like when we did meatball subs—we added some extra meatballs so that I’m making meatball pizzas,” Ryan said. “This way, we don’t waste anything.”
Storage and refrigeration: keeping food fresh
Proper storage is key to minimizing waste. Cold foods, including juice, milk, fruit, bagels, tortillas and cheese, are kept in refrigeration units, with one set at four degrees for cold storage and others below 40 degrees. Frozen items such as pastries, banana bars, burgers, popcorn chicken and French fries are stored in freezers until they are ready for use.
Minimizing leftovers
By the end of breakfast, most items are sold out, with leftover cereal being one of the few remaining products. The cafeteria aims to keep leftovers minimal, as reheating can only be done once following proper cooling techniques.
“If we have extras, we would take the bun off the sandwich, cool the chicken down, and then put it in the refrigerator,” Ryan said.
To track food safety, the cafeteria maintains detailed temperature logs that document initial temperatures, cooling times and storage conditions. The production worksheet is an essential tool, not only for tracking daily food usage but also for ensuring compliance with government regulations.
Inventory and government audits
Inventory orders are strictly based on daily usage. Using the production worksheet, the cafeteria staff monitors food consumption trends, ensuring that orders align closely with demand. The number of meals served is recorded through student ID scans at the checkout counter, allowing the system to track daily participation and adjust future meal production accordingly.
Accurate record-keeping is particularly important for government auditing. Under the California Universal Meals Program (UMP) established in 2022, all students are entitled to free school meals, and the cafeteria must maintain detailed documentation to receive reimbursements. The production worksheet serves as an official record, verifying that the number of meals prepared and served aligns with student participation data.
At the end of each month, production records are reviewed and archived to ensure accuracy and accountability.
Final preparations and serving strategies
To further reduce waste, the cafeteria follows strategic serving methods. For example, certain items, like Uncrustables, are reserved for the end of lunch to encourage the sale of hot meals first.
“We have the bagel yogurts that we make with cranberries, and we use those at the end because we can save them,” Ryan said. “This way, we don’t overproduce and end up with unnecessary waste.”
The production worksheet is updated in real time, helping staff determine which items should be heated and served first. By prioritizing the correct serving order, FVHS ensures that meals are distributed efficiently and waste is minimized.
The future of sustainability
Through careful planning, strategic inventory management and creative reuse of ingredients, the FVHS cafeteria has successfully implemented a zero-waste system that benefits both students and the environment. Next time you grab lunch at FVHS, know that every meal is part of a bigger mission — to protect Mother Earth.
