Debbie Trujillo, student nutrition services director for Bernalillo Public Schools in New Mexico, cares deeply about providing healthful, delicious meals to every student at the district’s eight schools, every day.
“My mission as student nutrition director is making healthy, quality food for our students,“ she says. “We serve approximately 2,800 breakfasts and approximately 2,900 lunches. We have eight or nine different offerings a day that we provide for lunch. My staff takes pride in making different kinds of pizza from scratch. We also do our traditional red chili with pork. We love to do Asian food. So we do offer a variety of different types of food options.“
Cooking with heart for the kids.
All eight schools in the district are equipped with a kitchen, and in every kitchen is a RATIONAL iCombi and iVario. The district purchased its first RATIONAL combi ovens in 1998 using money awarded through a state Department of Education grant. It has since updated its original equipment with iCombi Pro units and added iVario units, replacing its old tilt skillets.
They use RATIONAL grill plates and perforated baking trays to make perfectly crispy pizza quesadillas and chimichangas in the iCombi, and iVario accessories like scoops and baskets to facilitate the cooking and transfer of foods.
“We’re able to do so many functionalities at one time, so we can put two or three different meal options in an iCombi and not have to wait to make each one separately,“ Trujillo says.
Quality food, healthier food, and happier kids.
“Cooking in the iCombi and the iVario in our district really has allowed us to enhance the quality of food that we offer to our students on a daily basis. It really provides us with the cooking technology that we need to be able to serve healthier, scratched meals to our kids,“ Trujillo says.
“RATIONAL to me is the best cooking device that there is out there. When I look at quality, the way the food comes out, there’s no other comparison. RATIONAL is the way to go. Being able to have the iCombi and the iVario is a blessing to our district. We have quality food, healthier food, and happier kids.“
Industry:
Education
Core business:
Public School District
Location:
Bernalillo, New Mexico, USA
The challenge:
Deliver a variety of fresh, healthful, homemade food for breakfast and lunch across a school district
The solution:
- 8 - iCombi Pro
- 1 - iCombi XS
- 8 - iVario
Benefits:
- iCookingSuite – monitoring and support to deliver the results you want, exactly as specified
- iProduction Manager – allows you to prepare different foods at the same time
- iCareSystem AutoDose– integrated cleaning and descaling system for totally autonomous cleaning
- iDensity Control – intelligent climate management for exceptional productivity and results
- UltraVent – traps steam and vapors using condensation technology