From left, Dierdre Stavedahl, Lakeview Middle School, and Teresa Helm, Edgewood Middle School, sample different foods from Bob Rybolt, JTM Food Group. (Photos by Amanda McFarland)

WCS Food Services Director Marci Franks shows off the new Green Leaf salad bar at Lakeview Middle School.

WARSAW — Warsaw Community School Food Service personnel received the red carpet treatment this morning, Wednesday, Aug. 10, during the department’s annual training and vendor event.

Food service employees are required to have a certain number of hours’ worth of training in areas like nutrition, food safety and civil rights. WCS is also bringing in a guest to speak on customer service. The two days’ training session included classes on all of these topics and more.

Vendors filled the middle school dining commons and employees sampled different types of foods to see what they might like to incorporate into this year’s menu. Two individuals who attended culinary training in Fort Wayne over the summer also shared some of the techniques they learned for creating foods from scratch that follow guidelines for school lunches.

This year, students at Lakeview Middle School will also have new salad bar options with The Green Leaf. All Green Leaf items will be homemade from scratch, right down to the dressing, and will meet government requirements for things like sodium and fat content. Franks noted The Green Leaf was Staci Light’s idea, right down to the way it would look.

Vendors Jennifer Francis, left, and Patti Davids dish up lunch.

Food service workers are looking forward to the new school year, the different foods they have to offer and seeing which ones students like most.

“The tough part is, what are the kids going to like,” Light said.

Vendors also look forward to the back-to-school event and some even came dressed in their red-carpet best for the occasion.

“I’ve been doing business with Marci forever,” Bob Rybolt of JTM Food Group said. “I come up here for this and because of her. I deal with more than 400 schools and she is in the top five in directors in the way they run their schools and the ladies love her.”