Spending to Save: Investing in the Right Solution for your School Nutrition Program

The year 2020 completely revolutionized the way school nutrition teams fed their students. 

From financial woes to sweeping staff changes to hungry students, the good folks behind our nation’s school nutrition programs have made the most of a really tough situation.

And yet, it’s difficult to meet these challenges when the technology that’s supposed to help you manage your school nutrition program is more of a problem child than a teacher’s pet.

Problematic solutions create more work, and more work takes more time which is more money.

If your program is struggling because of technology that’s slow and offers little flexibility, it’s time to consider an investment in a solution that will help your school nutrition program start thriving – during the pandemic and beyond.

In this post, we’ll discuss…

• The current financial concerns for school nutrition directors
• How investing in the right solution now creates a greater potential for ROI and financial relief sooner

Financial concerns for school nutrition programs in 2021

The pandemic, like an evil menace in a horror film, has slashed participation for many nutrition programs in our country. The fallout: serious financial concerns.

And even though there have been stimulus packages and grants and flexibilities, nutrition directors and managers continue to fret over the stability of their programs.

In a survey conducted by the School Nutrition Association (SNA) last fall, participants revealed some startling truths about school year 19/20 and their financial concerns for school year 20/21.

Financial Loss

More than half of SNA survey respondents reported loss for SY 19/20 (reserves not included). And predictions for loss in SY 20/21 were even bleaker: 61.8% of respondents anticipate an overall net loss for the year.

Reserve Funds

A supermajority of respondents (60.2%) said they had enough reserves to cover losses for SY 19/20. When asked about SY 20/21 reserves, 46.1% said they wouldn’t have enough reserves and 32.5% said they didn’t know.

Investing in the right software now creates immediate time savings and future cost savings

If your school nutrition program is experiencing financial loss, the idea of investing in new software may seem silly.

However, the right solution actually makes your program more nimble, increases participation, and saves a ton of time. All of which creates a brighter financial future for your program.

A fully-integrated system creates a greater potential for a speedy return on investment. You can let go of your financial burdens and focus on what matters most – feeding nutritious meals to students.

How an all-in-one school nutrition system creates quick ROI

If your program management relies on separate solutions, you likely suffer from over-extended resources because of the following:

• Unnecessary manual processes, like adding an item in multiple places;
• Inaccurate data caused by human error;
• Internet outages that impact food service;
• Manual maintenance that requires IT assistance (that you often have to wait for);
• Complex, proprietary hardware that doesn’t communicate well with all of your management software AND requires IT assistance.

Your school nutrition program simply doesn’t have the resources to deal with technology that slows you down. An all-in-one school nutrition system reduces errors, allows for flexible service, slashes your reliance on IT, all of which saves time and money.

Time for some math: item management edition!

You need to add a bag of chips as an item. Let’s take a closer look at the time savings you get in TITAN for item entry versus, well, not TITAN. On average, an item has six units: three serving sizes, two pack sizes and one POS.

In a non-TITAN system, it takes roughly five minutes to add each unit and then one additional minute for linking. Therefore…

6 Units x 5 Minutes + 1 Minute for linking = 31 Minutes per new item 

In the TITAN system, an individual item only needs to be added in one place, one time. Therefore…

1 New item = 15 Minutes per new item

When you switch from a system that relies on item entry in multiple places to TITAN, you gain 16 minutes of time per new entry!

And that time savings adds up over the entire year. Let’s say you add 20 new items to your system per year. How many new items in a year?

20 Items per year x 16 Minutes saved per item = 320 Minutes saved per year 

When you invest in software that streamlines your processes, you have time to focus your efforts on building a bright future for your school nutrition program.

Investing in a Brighter Future for your School Nutrition Program

Change is hard and, damnit, there’s been a lot of that recently! If you’re nervous to invest in software or tempted to muddle through with what you have – we get it.

Remember though, it’s important to consider what an investment will get you beyond the software. Compared to other industry solutions, TITAN offers phenomenal support and our teams works with districts as partners.

So, let’s do one final math equation:

A flexible and scalable solution + Reliable support of K‑12 experts + Time and money savings = 100% Brighter future for your school nutrition program.