Bonus 5 - Fresh Ideas For School Milk

Scott Wallin  0:00  

Hey everybody. It's Scott Wong with dairy management Incorporated. I'm so happy to bring you a bonus episode of The your Dairy Checkoff podcast where we speak with checkoff experts and farmers about different strategies that are driving sales and trust in dairy. Today I'm joined by Katie Baumbach. She is Vice President of Nutrition affairs for National Dairy Council. Katie, how you doing?

Katie Bambacht  0:21  

I'm doing great. How are you doing, Scott,

Scott Wallin  0:22  

I'm doing good. I'm so happy to talk with you, because your area of focus for the Dairy Checkoff is schools. And there's always so many great things going on with schools that I know our dairy farmers want to learn more about. And pretty typical with the Dairy Checkoff strategies, we work, we work and partner with different organizations that help us achieve our goals. One of those organizations is the School Nutrition Association, and we want to talk about what the SNA is. So can we start with with that, and just kind of give us an overview of what the School Nutrition Association is?

Katie Bambacht  0:52  

Yeah. I mean, that's a great place to start. So the School Nutrition Association, we commonly refer to them as SNA, and they are a national nonprofit professional organization representing 50,000 school nutrition professionals who provide meals to students across the country. And SNA is recognized as the authority on school nutrition, and they have been working to advance the availability, quality and acceptance of school meal programs as an integral part of education since 1946 and a little fun fact, SNA was formed the same year as a National School Lunch Act, which is currently known as the National School Lunch Program.

Scott Wallin  1:35  

So talk about some of the ways National Dairy Council has engaged with SNA over the years,

Katie Bambacht  1:40  

sure. So before I jump into our work with SNA I do want to give a brief history of NDC. And you know, National Dairy Council. It was founded by America's dairy farm families and funded by the gyri Checkoff Program. And ndc is a nonprofit nutrition research, education and communications organization that has really championed the well being of children for over 100 years, and notably, NDC, helped launch a nutrition education program back in 1929 which contributed to the formation of the National School Lunch Program. So we have been involved in school meals even prior to their inception, which I always like to remind people about our our history and we we do have a very long standing partnership with SNA which is centered around our mutual objective to improve the nutrition of children and adolescents, which we can reach through the K 12 building. And our partnership connects school nutrition professionals to science based information and research on the role of dairy foods in healthy eating patterns, including some information on how offering culturally appropriate dairy options in school meals, and sharing that story of how nutrient rich dairy foods are responsibly produced, benefiting both people and the planet. And it's always important to remember too that you know these school nutrition professionals, they have daily, frequent interactions with children and teens during the school week and sometimes even on the weekends, providing weekend meals or holiday meals or during those summer months. And they also engage frequently with parents and other other adults in the school community. And so they're really important audience for us to think about. And you know, while the US Department of Agriculture, they provide oversight to school meal programs, it's really the school nutrition professionals who work at the local level. They're the ones who plan the breakfast the lunch meals to meet those nutrition standards, and they ultimately determine how dairy foods are incorporated into their menus. So it really is crucial for us to support them by providing education and also innovative ways for them to feature dairy and school meals, such as smoothies, lactose free, shelf stable milk or even hot chocolate milk programs. And these all help them increase participation, which is one of their main goals and objectives, and along with increasing access to nutrient rich school meals for all the children that they serve. You

Scott Wallin  4:15  

know, I think some of those people you've referenced on the local level are the true unsung heroes in our schools, it's unbelievable all the work that they do. And I know you have an opportunity to say that firsthand and really have an appreciation for them. You know, one of the things that's on your annual calendar is SNA hosts an annual national conference where they gather everybody and they talk about their different strategies. National Dairy Council has been there for several years. We always have a booth. You engage with the professionals. We do seminars where, you know, we're speaking in front of them, but I think one of the most fun parts about their annual national conferences, NDC always brings dairy farmers to the booth. What kind of started that strategy? Why do we have farmers there? And what have you observed over the years about what all the school professionals get out. Engaging with our farmers. This

Katie Bambacht  5:01  

conference is my favorite conference of the year. And every July, SNA post their annual national conference, and they call it the school nutrition event of the year. It really is just a huge gathering of school nutrition professionals. This year, there were 7000 attendees, including 1400 new attendees, which is always good to reach new audiences, and NDC has always had a strong presence at this conference, whether it's through that prominent exhibit booth that you mentioned, or an education session. We're always there to tell our story, and at our exhibit booth, we always feature, and this has been, always been a priority. We feature dairy farmer, and ultimately they become the main attraction of our booth. There's just so many attendees who are disconnected from agriculture, and having a dairy farmer present in our booth allows the attendees to get their questions about dairy farming answered in really real time and directly from the source and these farmers, you know, we either have a one or two farmers in the booth, and they do engage in these conversations about on farm practices animal care, and the journey of how the dairy products produced on their farm gets to the school. And it really is so valuable to have them there to correct, you know misconceptions, and also help build trust by addressing common myths around dairy and school meals. And also see a face to have a face to face interaction with somebody who's actually producing your food, and I enjoy it every year. And also in speaking with dairy farmers who have participated in the past at this conference, they have personally expressed that their interactions at this conference helps reinforce the importance of the school channel to help children meet their daily recommendations for dairy and it also allows the farmer to witness firsthand the impact that we're having in schools, which is really important. As they they founded our organization. They bring so much value to our presence at this conference.

Scott Wallin  7:07  

It's such an awesome strategy to kind of put that face on the dairy products that get served in these cafeterias every day across the country. And speaking of cafeterias, there's a strategy SNA is doing in partnership with National Dairy Council to kind of get kids into the lunchroom. Can you talk about what that strategy entails and what it means for dairy coming

Katie Bambacht  7:28  

out of covid? We heard a lot from school nutrition professionals who, you know, by the way, work tirelessly to feed 29 million students every day. But we heard from them that they need help. They need help in promoting the importance of school meals and nourishing students and addressing food and nutrition insecurity, because in addition to their daily daily requirements and putting a meal out for children, they also have to manage the regulatory requirements, and often lack the time or expertise to build out a marketing campaign. So we heard them a little more than a year ago. SNA, in partnership with NDC, launched the made with school lunch campaign, and this initiative aims to raise awareness and effectively communicate the positive impacts and benefits of nutrient rich school meals, including Dairy Milk and dairy foods and the campaign, it emphasizes the long term benefits of school lunch programs through a warm, engaging message paired with very simple and memorable nutrition facts and the central narrative and imagery, it features a Child alongside with an adult who symbolizes their future selves, hinting that they did indeed benefit from school lunch programs. You can actually see some of the assets behind me on the wall here, but the content that we've created with SNA it highlights dairy foods such as milk cheese and yogurt, along with fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean meats that all make up a nutritious and delicious school lunch, and this information is used to educate administrators, teachers, parents, students, and also the broader school community, and encourages them to learn more about school meals and help support the program. Because, you know, helping nourishing students with school meals is not only critical for nutrition security, but also for their children's health and for their learning readiness. We know they're at school to learn. We want them to be nourished to learn and to have a good day ahead of them. And thinking about these campaign assets that we've created, we did put a strong emphasis on video content. We know in today's social channels, videos are a big hit with with several folks. So we want, we wanted to develop a lot of video content. And we do have a web page where we have all of our campaign assets that are easily downloadable. And these assets include social media posts and images. We have posters in English. And Spanish again, some of the posters behind me here. And we also have a flagship video and a series of shorter videos for quicker engagement opportunities. So this is we're currently in year two of this three year campaign. And I do encourage folks to check out the website. It's madewithschounch.com to learn more.

Scott Wallin  10:19  

You know, the materials look awesome. I've had a chance to kind of check them out, and the videos are fun. I think this has got a really strong chance to resonate with kids and get them back in the cafeteria and drink that milk. We've covered a lot about School Nutrition Association, but I know that's not the only thing you're busy working on. What's another project you'd like to talk about? Yeah,

Katie Bambacht  10:39  

something that pops to mind for me is, you know, education remains a priority for National Dairy Council, and in recent months, we have focused on optimizing health and nutrition and equity, specifically addressing the role of dairy foods and lactose free dairy milk options in schools. And just this past June, we hosted a webinar with SNA and also conducted an education session at their annual national conference in July on this very topic, where we collaborated with a physician from National Medical Association and she provided her expertise and explored the widespread health and nutrition disparities and inequities that disproportionately affect people of color. And our physician also provided some evidence based strategies to help address these health disparities. From a healthy eating perspective, leaning into the contribution of dairy foods while addressing also the lactose intolerance and how it affects nutrition outcomes and practical tips and solutions for effective management of lactose intolerance. So started our presentations of very like high level scientific research base, and then we brought in the operational perspective. So we presented an overview of our lactose free shelf stable dairy milk pilot, which National Dairy Council, along with seven, several other partners, work to conduct in Cincinnati Public Schools during the 2023 2024, school year. And the results of that pilot indicate, you know, tremendous potential to address gaps in lactose free milk options available in school meals, and we we had the director from Cincinnati Public Schools share firsthand her experience from the successful pilot implementation in a very diverse district, and she offered some really valuable insights and lessons learned. And some of the data that I wanted to bring forth here is the school district saw milk purchases increase by 16% compared to the rest of the district and the pilot schools. And not only did milk purchases and consumption increase, but participation in the meal program rose by 7% bringing in additional students who weren't previously participating. So due to the success of this pilot, the lactose free shelf stable dairy milk will now be available in every single Cincinnati Public school next year, alongside their fresh milk options to help ensure that, really, all students can now benefit from the nutrient rich school meals and dairy that the schools are providing. You know, the

Scott Wallin  13:20  

results of that are just so impressed. I mean, it's great that we are bringing kids into the category who maybe had gotten away from drinking milk. So So congratulations on all the great work you and your team, along with Mideast dairy, have done as well on that. Katie, so good catching up with you and learning more about the work we're doing in schools. Thank you so much for your time. Yep, thanks, Scott and dairy farmers who want to learn more about your Dairy Checkoff, be sure to visit Dairy Checkoff podcast.com you.