Lactose-Free Milk Makes Schoolkids Smile

Jessica Shelly is the Director of Student Dining Services for Cincinnati Public Schools in Cincinnati, Ohio. She's responsible for overseeing the service of more than 60,000 meals a day in the lunchroom operations at 65 schools.

And in 2023, her school system tried something different: It offered its students lactose-free milk. The hugely successful pilot project has now been adopted district-wide, improving nutrition, boosting school lunch participation and reducing food waste. The Cincinnati model points to a promising path for milk in schools, as student bodies become more diverse and millions of children rely on school meals as their main nutrition source for the day. 

“These are kids who may not be able to go home to a refrigerator full of food, and so it's our job to make sure that we are providing them with the most healthy and nutritious meals possible when they're here with us at school,” she said. “Part of that is making sure they have all the nutrients and protein they need, and we know that milk plays a large role in that.”

Transcript

Alan Bjerga: Hello, and welcome to the Dairy Defined Podcast. Milk for all, it's a powerful idea, and it's one that dairy producers are making reality, in innovative ways, with innovative partnerships. Today, we're going to hear about one of those partnerships. Jessica Shelly is the Director of Student Dining Services for Cincinnati Public Schools in Cincinnati, Ohio. She's responsible for overseeing the service of more than 60,000 meals a day in the lunchroom operations at 65 schools.

And in 2023, her school system tried something different, offering students lactose-free milk, a journey that continues to the present day. This is a big deal, because lactose intolerance is more common in a more diverse population, and as dairy adapts to the needs of its consumers, lactose-free and low-lactose products are increasingly important to getting school kids the nutrition they need. Jessica, it's great to have you here today to talk about your work on the project, and what you have to say.

Jessica Shelly: Yeah. Thank you, Alan, for having me. I'm looking forward to our discussion.

Alan Bjerga: You are serving a large student population. What are some of their nutritional needs, and how does dairy help serve those needs?

Jessica Shelly: Yeah, that's a great question, and a great place to start, because I think that's something that people need to understand, is that we actually have a population of about 81% of our students who qualify for free and reduced meals. What that means, is that they are technically qualified at 200% poverty level, so these are students who are receiving SNAP benefits, homeless, foster. These are kids who may not be able to go home to a refrigerator full of food, and so it's our job to make sure that we are providing them with the most healthy and nutritious meals possible when they're here with us at school.

Part of that is making sure they have all the nutrients and protein they need, and we know that milk plays a large role in that. It's not only a wonderful provider for calcium, which is incredibly important for our female population of students in that middle school year, but it also provides a great amount of vitamin A, vitamin D, and then, of course, the protein component. And this is one of the things that we found was getting sometimes missed, as students may not be picking up a milk to complete their meal with us each day. And so that's kind of how we began to pivot, and look at opportunities to make sure that all students had access to the wonderful protein that's provided from a milk dairy product.

Alan Bjerga: You have this pilot project with lactose-free milk. Tell us about that.

Jessica Shelly: We started out, we like to do things here following more of a Six Sigma application, so we started with a small population pilot, and wanted to see how our students reacted to being offered a lactose-free milk. If that would increase participation of milk being taken from our lunch lines? Also, would it increase the number of total meals the students enjoyed with us, if they understood that we were actually making sure we were accommodating all needs of all populations?

And, finally, was the consumption of the milk product actually increasing? Because it's one thing to take a milk, it's another thing actually to consume it. We're in the business of feeding kids, not trash cans, so that was an important part of our aspect.

So we started with different levels of elementary schools and both high schools, offering a lactose-free milk offering. And within the end of the first semester, we had such an increase, a notable increase, in participation and overall consumption from that lactose-free offering, that we decided to expand it and offer it out to all of our high schools, because that is where we saw the biggest jump in increase of participation in both milk consumption and meal participation. So we expanded it out to all of our high schools. And, again, we found it tracking. So it wasn't a causation correlation thing here, it was definitely something we could link directly to our lactose-free offering.

We were so impressed with what was happening, and the feedback we were getting from teachers, and community, and parents, and even custodians, because those trash bags were way less heavy as they were, not as filled up all milk products that were half-drank. We were seeing less food waste, which is always our ultimate goal. And so we actually expanded that lactose-free out to all of our schools this school year. So it's no longer a pilot here at CPS, it's actually a practice.

Alan Bjerga: And this is all done with partnerships, Dairy Management Inc, American Dairy Association Mideast specifically were helping you on this project. How are you and the partners working together as this expands?

Jessica Shelly: Yeah, those partnerships are vital for us, because they help us really source out where we can find this lactose-free milk. That was an intricate role that they played to help us. They also supported us through that first part of that pilot, because we were really unsure.

And, in true transparency, lactose-free milk does cost more than a regular milk product, so they were willing to help us balance that effort through the pilot. And then also do a lot of information sharing. So they were a huge partner with us, in making sure we provided correct information to our parent groups, to our school nurses, on our website, so that we were actually making sure people were aware of how we were moving forward, to make sure we had a new product that was available for all students.

Alan Bjerga: What are some of the main takeaways you've gained as you've gone down this road, and how are you following up on what you've learned?

Jessica Shelly: One of the main things we realized is that, we saw that if we listen to the kids, they will tell us what they want and what they need. And I think that's one of the things that's ... We kind of get caught up here in the rigmarole, and a lot of National School Lunch Program is an incredibly challenging program to keep on budget. And so when you hear about spending extra money, you first have to ... Everybody kind of gulps and, "Oh, where's my bottom line going to be?"

And I think, in the end, what we found is that investing in our kids didn't affect our bottom line, because the increased meal participation actually paid for the additional cost of lactose-free milk. The kids saw us as someone who looks out for them.

I think one of my defining moments, when I knew that this project was going to turn into a actual permanent menu item for us, is I was out at a school at breakfast, just talking with the kids. Some of the best parts of my job, you can't have a bad day when you can go out and have lunch with a first grader. They were going through the lunch line, and one little boy exclaimed, "Oh, they have the milk that doesn't hurt my stomach." That's why we do what we do.

This is why we are able to change and make sure that kids are getting the nutrition they need, by getting that milk that doesn't hurt their stomachs, the lactose-free milk. And then they're able to enjoy, not only that milk product, but enjoy their meal. I think that that's one of those aha moments that we have. And sometimes it's not just about keeping our silo of finances, but looking at the broader big picture of how we can actually truly support our students through good nutrition.

Alan Bjerga: And this all sounds great, so why isn't everyone doing it everywhere?

Jessica Shelly: I think a lot of it is awareness. I think that people just don't know what they don't know. And I think it's one of those things that, for a long time in USDA world, it's kind of been drilled into our heads that you offer lactose-free milk when a parent has a doctor's note presented to you, when there's an exception to the rule. And I think what we have learned, is that there's been so many exceptions to the rule, and there's not sometimes a parent to be engaged to provide that doctor's note, and so you have a child who misses out.

We found that streamlining and offering lactose-free milk actually reduced the amount of paperwork we were doing on a regular basis here in our office, for kids who were lactose intolerant, and who weren't participating in our programs because of that. So I think it's maybe just one of those things where people don't know what they don't know yet. And I'm really hoping that the success of our pilot, and the work with American Dairy and Dairy Management will really help us get this story out, and tell people there is other options that you can pursue successfully as a school food service operation.

Alan Bjerga: We've been speaking with Jessica Shelly, she's the Director of Student Dining Services for Cincinnati Public Schools. Jessica, anything that we've missed?

Jessica Shelly: No. I'd just like to say thank you so much for your time, and making sure that this is a story that gets out, so I can hopefully see more students out there enjoying milk that doesn't hurt their stomachs.

Alan Bjerga: Well, thank you very much for your time. For more of the Dairy Defined Podcast, all you have to do is go to our website www.nmpf.org, or go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music and search under the podcast name Dairy Defined. Thank you for joining us.