2 of 9

Introductions

Jessica Ritz

General Manager

Bill Whitcomb

Vice President of Operations

Cory Goldfarb

District Manager

3 of 9

Looking at our 2025-26 results…

Average daily lunch meals as a percent of average daily attendance – by school

Key take-aways

Ocean Ave (46%) and Navesink (43%) had the highest participation for Elementary Schools when taking the percentage of lunch meals divided by average daily attendance.
While New Monmouth, Nutswamp, Lincroft & Village produce more meals per day, their participation % is lower due to their higher enrollment.
Bayshore had the highest Middle School participation at 47%.
The benchmark for overall participation varies by school level with the goal being 40% or higher at Elementary, 30% or higher for Middle and 20% or higher for High Schools.

Breakfast Program Update

Thank you Middletown for continuing to support free breakfast

Breakfast will be FREE again this school year!

Last year we served an average of 980 breakfast meals per day, district wide.
When breakfast was not free, participation was only about 200 meals per day.
That is an increase of over 450% !
All students have access to the free breakfast meals when they enter school for the day.

Meal Applications

Free & Reduced Meal Applications

Families must fill out a new application every school year to qualify for free or reduced meals
Applications are available on the food service section on the Middletown website.
If a new application is not filled out, students will lose their free/reduced meal status in mid-October.

Did you know?

Whitsons Food Service Facts

All food we serve is free of artificial dyes, trans fats and high fructose corn syrup.
All snacks served meet the Smart Snack Guidelines:

Reduced sugar
No artificial dyes
Contain no more than 200 calories and total fat needs to be 35% of calories or less.
Snacks are made specifically for K-12 programs to meet these guidelines

Last year the district served over 19,000 pounds of fresh produce and 19% of that was derived from local farms.

Looking ahead…

For the Upcoming 2026-27 School Year

Whitsons is committed to preparing meals with NO added seed oils.
Tyson has removed soy from all their chicken products.
Whitsons has sourced a higher quality beef burger and beef taco meat for our Elementary and Middle School programs.
Meal Price Update:

Looking ahead…

For the Upcoming 2026-27 School Year, continued…

The Chefs are committed to expanding on our scratch cooking throughout the district.
They will promote a variety of marketing events including;

Farm to school tasting events centered around our Harvest of the Month program.
Pop-up shops that are designed to promote a new menu concept to generate excitement for a short period of time.
Food samplings for new menu items a few days prior to when it is on the menu.
Seasonal promotions throughout the year.