As a part of the Food Away From Home Association, we created SchoolCafeterias.net to educate foodservice operators, brands, and suppliers on the evolving landscape of school meal programs and the opportunities for healthier, innovative, and dietary-specific products in K-12 cafeterias. This platform provides insights into nutrition guidelines, procurement processes, and best practices for introducing natural, organic, gluten-free, and high-protein options into school dining programs. Additionally, we highlight key foodservice channels, helping brands understand the distribution and operational needs of cafeterias, campus dining, and institutional foodservice settings to better align their products with school nutrition standards and student preferences.
In the United States, the educational landscape comprises various types of schools, each serving a significant portion of the student population:
Key food service suppliers for schools include Sysco, which provides a wide range of food and non-food products to educational institutions, and Sodexo, a company offering integrated food services and facilities management to schools globally. Additionally, Aramark delivers comprehensive food service solutions to the education sector, and Compass Group has been expanding its presence in the school catering market through strategic acquisitions.
The Food Away From Home Association is dedicated to identifying and promoting the newest, healthiest food, snack, and beverage options for schools of all kinds, including public, private, and charter schools. By working closely with emerging brands, foodservice suppliers, and nutrition experts, the association ensures that K-12 cafeterias, campus dining programs, and school vending services have access to natural, organic, gluten-free, high-protein, and functional food products that meet evolving dietary needs.
Through SchoolCafeterias.net, the association educates school administrators, foodservice directors, and decision-makers on the latest nutrition trends, product innovations, and regulatory requirements, ensuring that students receive nutritious, great-tasting meals that support their overall well-being and academic performance.
Food Service Providers: We educate brands about companies such as Compass (Foodbuy), Sodexo, Aramark, Delaware North and many others provide a very important service in being the operators of a cafeteria, retail area and possibly vending.
www.FoodServiceProviders.org
The Hotel Retail Group is available to help with your in-store marketing needs (POS, shippers, displays, club store displays, signage, racks and fixtures, etc). We have over 30-years with the largest companies (Nestle, Coca Cola, Pepsi/Frito-Lay) and a vast number of start-up brands (Nature’s Bakery, Perfect Bar, Coachella Farms, etc) in creating merchandising programs.
Our merchandising unit manufacturers are based in America with factories in Mexico and China.
FOOD SERVICE FORMATS: The Food Away From Home Association’s founders have been involved in the Food Service industry (as suppliers, partners and media) for many years. Our new membership will include operators and franchisors as well as others such as food service providers, chains, distributors, associations and more. We are also expanding into healthy option ideas and introductions for their customers (smoothie, juice, boba tea and yogurt).
The Food Away From Home Association will be launching its membership drive soon! As part of our initiative, we are first engaging with key stakeholders in the industry, including smoothie shop, boba tea shop, juice shop, and yogurt shop operators, franchisors, franchisees, suppliers, distributors, and other essential partners. Our goal is to build a strong network that supports and advances businesses in the food away from home sector. We welcome discussions at the trade shows we visit to share insights about our program planning details and how membership can provide valuable resources, advocacy, and networking opportunities.
Juice Shops are becoming more and more popular and are growing in many locations throughout America. You will see them in strip malls, colleges and universities, food courts, hospitals, hotels, resorts, airports and many other food service formats.
Our Grab-and-Go program (ex: smoothie shops, juice shops, boba tea shops) includes beverages, candy, energy bars, brownies, fruit snacks, dairy products, ice cream, sports nutrition products, macarons, croissants and others.
We have been in television production since the mid-1980’s and have had a-number of TV shows over the years including the recent launch of Entrepreneur Magazine Television. Our next show about start-ups is called The Counselors.
The Food Away From Home Association is launching dedicated YouTube channels focused on the perspectives of both Franchisors and Franchisees in the food service industry.
Our family has been involved within the consumer product industry (US based manufacturing, retailing, distribution) since the early 1920’s. From the first generation to the latest, our best practices have been handed down over time leading to a long legacy of successes in the business (manufacturing, retailing, distribution and more).
