You may have noticed a change during lunch in the past two weeks, a change that initially began over a year ago.

“We started the new food last year and because of the food there was many different things.” Explained Teresa Conway, Souths Food Service Coordinator, “So they wanted to have it set up differently so it’s easier for us to serve and you kids to be able to eat.”

Last year a new and larger variety of food was introduced to South due to MPSs’ nutrition services director Betrand Weber bringing local food to schools. Starting in 2012 it began as “real food Thursday” where every Thursday Minneapolis schools served local, healthy food.

Due to popularity “real food Thursday” quickly spread to every day of the week. The lunch room, however, was not set up to serve the new variety and so now, over a year later since it was introduced to south, a change has been made.

“They had done many of the other high schools last year,” continued Conway, referring to the new setup, “And now they’ve got to us, they’ve learned from bad things of the other schools, so we got the good so ours is even better, very pretty.”

Students have also reacted positively to the new setup, “I believe the new school lunch system is better, I like the food and I don’t think it needs to improve,” said South senior Kevin Garcia-Martinez, “I think it’s good for now.”

Conway has also had a positive transition.

“We’ve done it for two days now and I think it’s gone very well,” commented Conway, “the only thing that we have to basically re-teach to kids is there’s two lines over by the deli/grill…..kids have to learn to know to come around to get into those lines.”

These changes to our school lunch have slowly been occurring over the past few years and now with a new set up to the lunchroom students can enjoy local, healthy food in an efficient way.

“The end goal is always to serve good food to you guys,” said Conway, “Healthy, good tasting food for you students and with the new serving area, it’s to move you guys through quicker so that you guys have plenty of time to sit down and enjoy your lunches.”