CLEVELAND, OH - Del Monte Fresh has joined First Lady Michelle Obama’s push to move produce in schools, Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools. Teaming up with Marc’s, the company provided three self-serve salad bars to different schools in the Mentor, Ohio area.

“It’s always great partnering with a customer like Marc’s, which embodies the same values as us,” Dionysios Christou, VP of Marketing at Del Monte Fresh Produce, said in a press release. “It is our responsibility to give back to the communities we operate in and to make a lasting impact on society. Allowing students to ‘customize’ their healthy lunches with a large variety of fresh produce is the perfect tool to instill healthy eating habits that will last a lifetime.”

The company’s donations to the initiative were celebrated on October 8th, bringing together school administrators, students, and produce and retail grocery executives to hail the occasion.

“As part of our commitment to the community, we take great pride in promoting healthy eating habits and increasing students’ access to fruits and vegetables in school lunchrooms,” Marc Glassman, Founder of Marc’s, added in the release. “We’re pleased to come together with our partners at Del Monte Fresh to make this positive, healthy change possible.”

The recipients of these donations were:

• Mentor High School: 6477 Center Street, Mentor, Ohio 44060
• Shore Middle School: 5670 Hopkins Road, Mentor, Ohio 44060
• Memorial Middle School: 8979 Mentor Ave, Mentor, OH 44060

These salad bars donated by Marc’s and Del Monte Fresh are the first implemented by the school district, with many school foodservice programs not having the funds needed to purchase the equipment on their own.

“We would not have been able to get salad bars, if not for this opportunity,” Jeni Lange, Supervisor of Nutrition Services for the Mentor Public Schools, stated. “Now that we have salad bars, it’s a huge attraction and we have more students eating a healthy meal at school.”

According to the release, the district saw the salad bars as a way to encourage more students to participate in its meal program, as well as meeting new nutrition standards that require schools to serve more fruits and vegetables in more varieties each day.

To see more from Lange about the salad bar donation, watch the short video from the event below.

“The salad bars are new, so we are still learning the best way to use them with our current meal programs, but it is clear students really like the option to customize their meals,” Lange added. “At Mentor Public Schools we are committed to moving our meal program forward with new innovative ideas that expand upon a typical salad bar approach.”

The Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative has led to donating salad bars to more than 4,100 schools nationwide to date, including 150 in Ohio, benefitting upwards of 3 million children. Del Monte Fresh and Marc’s coordinated the donations of these three salad bars with founding partner of the initiative United Fresh Start Foundation.

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