Keeping students excited about school meals served with milk is a priority for ADA North East. Our team worked closely with school nutrition directors in 52 schools with more than 54,000 students throughout the six-state region last spring to introduce and implement a new menu item–hot chocolate milk–by providing equipment and marketing suggestions.
We conducted a two-week test which showed that milk sales increased with the addition of hot chocolate milk. Check out this information provided to the schools.
One example of the program’s success stories was:
Tyson Elementary School in New Jersey’s East Orange School District
- Before Hot Chocolate Milk: 1,421 8-ounce servings of cold milk
- After Hot Chocolate Milk: 1,472 8-ounce services of hot chocolate milk PLUS 663 8-ounce servings of cold milk
- Total: Increase of 714 8-ounce servings of milk!
The program will continue for the 2021-2022 school year and ADA North East is working with their food service teams to expand the program to other schools within the districts.
“The hot chocolate milk machine is a great success. The students have really been enjoying the milk heated; on many occasions we ran the machine dry.” – Dimitra ‘Mimi’ Barrios, Food Service Supervisor at Ridley School District in Pennsylvania.
