The Texas Association for School Nutrition’s (TASN) Annual Conference brought us together for three days with a whole lot of school nutrition professionals who refuse to settle for software that gets in the way of feeding kids.
We saw nutrition leaders from across the state at the Gaylord Texan Resort for TASN 2026. This year’s event theme was Ignite the Light, and the LINQ team showed up ready to match that energy with our Imagine campaign launch, a packed learning session about flexible serving without paper rosters, a happy hour full of familiar faces, and two full days on the expo floor talking to the people who run cafeterias for a living.
Here’s everything that happened.
We Launched Imagine
We asked nutrition directors at TASN one question, then handed them a camera: Imagine what you could do if your software ran like it should.
At our booth, directors snapped their own instant photo and pinned it to our wall while telling us what they could do. The wall came to life with real faces representing real ways to focus on feeding kids without spreadsheets and clipboards holding them back.
Here are a few quotes from LINQ customers that inspired booth visitors to think about what’s possible:
“Shows compliance for every single item — grains, protein, fruit, veg, milk — all in the family portal.”
“Tracks every off-site meal digitally, synced and audit-ready without a clipboard.”
“Knows the cost per plate of every menu plan before it ever hits the cafeteria.”
Every one of those stories came from a director who closed the gap between what their old software could do and what they needed from it. That gap is exactly what Imagine is about, and it’s a conversation that’s just getting started.
We’re bringing the Imagine campaign to SNA’s Annual National Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, later this month, so even more nutrition directors can join us in imagining what’s possible.
Katy Hoyng Took the Stage
One of the best parts of TASN is that our own people are part of this community. Katy Hoyng, MS, RDN, LD, SNS, LINQ’s Senior Manager of Documentation and eLearning Services and a former K-12 district nutrition director in Texas, co-presented “Flexible Serving Beyond the Cafeteria” alongside LINQ Chief Customer Officer Mike Borges.
The session opened with a reminder of what’s really at stake. According to No Kid Hungry, students who eat school breakfast average nearly 18% higher math scores, 1.5 more days of attendance, a 20% higher graduation rate, $10,000 higher annual earnings after graduation, and a 4% higher employment rate. That makes flexible serving so much more than a logistics exercise. It’s how more kids get access to meals that can open doors to a brighter future.
From there, the room did the work. Katy and Mike ran the session as a live discussion, and directors brought real answers:
- Examples that work. Breakfast in the classroom, grab-and-go carts, offsite and field trip serving, and coffee bars in high schools all came up as models directors are already using to meet kids where they are.
- Start small, then scale. The best practice that came up again and again: pilot one model, let the data guide the next decision, and lean on nearby districts that have already solved the same problems.
- Buy-in follows support, not mandates. As Katy put it, “When teachers and staff feel informed and supported, adoption follows. One champion classroom can shift the culture.” A train-the-trainer approach and a few visible early wins do more than a top-down rollout ever will.
- Compliance that travels with the food. Documentation works best when it’s simple enough for non-nutrition staff to complete on-site, and allergen information has to be visible well beyond the cafeteria walls. A digital solution compatible with mobile devices can make it much easier than clipboards and paper rosters.
It was a packed room, and the conversation kept going well past the Q&A.
Happy Hour
Between the session and the expo floor, there’s always more to catch up on than the schedule allows. LINQ hosted a happy hour for district nutrition leaders and industry partners we’ve gotten to know over the years, giving everyone a chance to keep those conversations going.
We compared notes on the day’s sessions and enjoyed some unhurried time together with a glass of local Grapevine, Texas wine.
On the Expo Floor
Between sessions, our booth stayed busy. Nutrition directors stopped by to talk through the gaps we heard about in front of the Imagine wall: staff rushing to fill out production reports by hand, correcting inventory counts by hand, and scrambling to change a menu at the last minute when an item runs out and a line of kids is waiting on it. We heard the same about compliance tracking that eats up staff time better spent on service, and the work of knowing the true cost per plate before a menu ever gets served instead of after the damage is done.
What’s Next
TASN 2026 confirmed what we hear everywhere we go: nutrition directors know exactly what their software should do for them. We’re here to provide it.