Beefed Up Pizza Wins Entree to 19 Schools

PLACENTIA — Hoping to land a contract to serve its product to elementary school students here, Pizza Hut first had to beef up its recipe to meet federal school lunch program requirements--by adding more pepperoni.

The new recipe, which also includes changes in the pizza’s cheese, resulted in an agreement approved this week by the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District to replace pizzas made by the district’s food service with Pizza Hut delivery at 19 elementary schools.

“The kids will know it’s Pizza Hut pizza from the menus we send home,” said Donna Mosino, food services supervisor for the school district. “We sure hope we’ll have more students buy it. That’s the whole reason for doing this.”

Placentia-Yorba Linda’s agreement with Pizza Hut is part of a recent move toward bringing fast food onto school campuses. Capistrano Valley High School recently opened a fast-food court, the first at a U.S high school.

The large pepperoni pizzas will be served once a month at each school as part of the school lunch program, beginning Oct. 5. The pizza will be served at one elementary school each day, with each school having pizza once a month. If the program is successful, additional days may be added, Mosino said.

The district’s three high schools and Kraemer Junior High all introduced Pizza Hut’s personal pan pizzas on their cafeteria menus last year. But because the pizzas did not meet national school lunch program nutritional requirements, they could not be served in elementary schools, where students are not offered a variety of choices for lunch each day.

Pizza Hut changed the recipe, including adding more pepperoni, to meet the requirements, and began offering the service to elementary schools.

According to Mosino, a pilot program at a South County elementary school has been successful. Nearly 90% of the students at that school bought the pizza lunch when it was offered, Mosino said.

In the Placentia-Yorba Linda district, about 33% of the nearly 12,000 elementary school students buy lunch each day. The district expects that the number will increase when Pizza Hut service begins, assuring that more children will be eating a balanced lunch each day.

The price of the pizza lunch, which will include salad or fruit and milk, will be $1.50.