Meat + Poultry - January 2006 - 70

School lunch

Vernon Michael Washington, a foodservice
worker at F.C. Hammond Jr. High School in
Alexendria, Va., prepares U.S.D.A. commodity
turkey for the school lunch program. (Photo
courtesy of U.S.D.A. /Ken Hammond)

to be completed, but it's worth it.
"At first, we didn't have the resources
to do all this, but as time went on, that
became easier," he adds.
David-Elliot Poultry Farm got into
the school lunch business in a different way and for unlikely reasons, according to Moshe Fink, C.O.O. of the
poultry slaughterer and processor.
The small, Scranton, Pa.-based company manufacturers kosher chicken
and chicken products. In an industry
dominated by giant firms, David-Elliot
is unusually small. In particularly kosher chicken and chicken products are
dominated by Empire Kosher Poultry,
Mifflintown, Pa.
"We got into supply school lunches
because of religious reasons, and at the
request of a Jewish school organization," says Fink, who runs the company
with his brother Shlomo. "The New York
Board of Jewish Education was looking
for a supplier of kosher poultry products-chicken for its schools in New
York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles." David-Elliot got involved in the
school lunch program and began supplying kosher poultry to the schools.
Fink says the company is not involved
in school lunch to make a great deal of
money, because that is not what is happening. "The truth is, it generates a lot
72

MEAT&POULTRY

January 2006

of goodwill for us, because it helps to
secure our place in this niche that is kosher poultry slaughtering, processing
and the production of kosher poultry
products," according to Fink. The Jewish school organization was looking
for a manufacturer that could provide
products produced under a very high
level of kosher standards.
"The problem that we, or anyone else
has, in producing kosher products for the
school lunch program, is that U.S.D.A.
sets the amount of money they will pay
for products. They can't pay more to us
because of the additional costs of making it kosher, because that would be a
violation of church-state separation. If
you go into the commercial market and
see what kosher meat products cost,
they're always higher than non-kosher
products," says Fink. "That's because
of the slaughtering process, the rabbis
involved and getting the kosher certification on the product all costs more
money. So we couldn't manufacture the
kosher poultry products at the government price. But the New York Board of
Jewish Education was willing to subsidize the price. So if the U.S.D.A. price
was 50 cents per pound and the board
was willing to add 60 cents to it, that
brings the price up to $1.10 a pound,
which was affordable for us."
Like every other business involved in
the school lunch program, David-Elliot
Farm is required to follow the U.S.D.A.
rules for products. In the case of chickens, they have to weigh between 2.25
pounds and 3.25 pounds. There can
only be a three-quarter pound range
in size, with a U.S.D.A. grader checking the weight. "When the bid is issued, we only have so long to produce
the products-in this case, six weeks
to produce 14,000, three-pound birds
to fill the order," Fink says. "It takes
me about four weeks to do it, an extra
3,500 birds a week in addition to my
regular products (for grocery stores and
other markets). When we do it (school
lunch products), we work overtime. We
also have to pay the U.S.D.A. grader to
watch and make sure the chicken parts
are the correct weight and number for

www.MEATPOULTRY.com

the cases, which can cost us $60,000."
Elliot-David also must pay for the
right to label its products "kosher" by a
kosher certification organization. "We
pay a fee for the right to use the Crown
Heights kosher certification," Fink explains, referring to a certification firm
located in a heavily Jewish area of
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Maid-Rite Steak Co., Dunmore,
Pa., got into the school lunch industry because it was able to help schools
convert 60-pound frozen blocks of
ground beef and 40-pound cases containing four 10-pound tubes of ground
beef into products that could be easily
served to students. On the commercial
side, the company processes and sells
portion-controlled products to retail
and foodservice customers.
The products, which arrive at the
company "by the trailer-load," according to Mike Bernstein, executive
vice president, come from the largest
meat slaughterers and packers. "When
school districts contract with processors like us to do something with these
large amounts of frozen meat, we're
called 'back haulers.' The schools
aren't set up to do anything with these
60-pound blocks. The meat comes as
commodities donated by U.S.D.A. to
the states. The states divvy it up to the
school districts, depending on the size
of the district and the number of students attending," Bernstein says.
"When we get the meat, we have as
many as 20 products that we offer the
schools," says Bernstein. "We grind the
meat, add value to it, and add spices.
We always make the commodity products into fully cooked products (frozen, ready-to-heat) or raw products the
schools must cook."
Bernard Shire is a food safety consultant
for Shire & Associates in Lancaster,
Pa., and previously served as director
of legislative and regulatory affairs
for the American Association of Meat
Processors.
We would like to hear from you- your comments
and questions about this article are welcome.
E-mail the author at: meat&poultry@sosland.com

http://www.MEATPOULTRY.com

Meat + Poultry - January 2006

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meat + Poultry - January 2006