Quality Catering for Kids: Child care, school lunch provider adding organic option

Contact: Tracy Casanova, 888-356-7513

Quality Catering for Kids Also Eliminating Trans Fats from Main Menus

Organic foods are being added to the menu at Quality Catering for Kids, which provides nutritious hot lunches and other meals for child care centers and private schools in southeastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

“We’ve always focused on nutrition, so it was natural for us to add organic items when customers started asking us for them,” said Jim Scharnell, company president whose Wisconsin offices are in Brookfield.

Along with the addition of organic items, each day’s main menu offered by Quality Catering for Kids will be totally free of trans fats. That will include each day’s hot lunch primary menu as well as breakfasts and snacks.

The organic food option will begin in January. The new menus will include organic foods such as fruits, vegetables, pastas, grains and cheese, Scharnell said. “Every day, some component of the meal will be organic,” he said.

A limited vegetarian option also is now available from Quality Catering for Kids. Those menus include items such as cheese ravioli, red beans and rice, vegetarian chili, veggie burgers and cheese sandwiches.

Childhood nutrition has been the focus of Quality Catering for Kids since its founding in 1980. The company now prepares and delivers more than 15,000 meals each day.

“Our company’s mission is to foster healthy eating habits in young people – habits that will contribute to better health throughout their lives,” Scharnell said. “Based on that mission, we are eliminating foods with trans fats from our main menus.”

Trans fats, also known as trans fatty acids, may contribute to the risk of cardiovascular disease by raising the amount of bad cholesterol and lowering the amount of good cholesterol in the body, according to Nancy Lambert, the Registered Dietary Technician at Quality Catering for Kids.

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Quality Catering for Kids is committed to childhood nutrition. Its menus are developed with the guidance of an on-staff Registered Dietetic Technician. Cooked foods are prepared in a manner that retains nutritional value and flavor. Its menus are “kid-tested,” so a higher percentage of each meal is consumed, adding to the nutrition value. Quality Catering for Kids is the only such company in the Midwest to have its kitchens USDA-certified. The company is online at http://www.qualitycateringforkids.com.