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FOOD SERVICES
Fun with Food
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
A Tour of the Central Kitchen
If you follow this yellow brick road you may find a Steam
Kettle that holds 125 gallons of spaghetti sauce, stirred with
a spoon that looks like a boat paddle. On the other end of the
yellow path is a Revolving Rack Oven that can bake 1000
cookies or 25 cakes at one time! Equipment like this helps
when you’re baking 600 full sized cakes (using 2500 pounds
of cake mix) or 1600 pounds of ground beef with 400 big cans
of tomato sauce and paste for spaghetti. That’s only a part
of the activity that goes on everyday at TUSD Food Services
Central Kitchen. A kitchen that serves 38,000 to 50,000
customers everyday must have equipment that can handle the
job. Just imagine owing a restaurant that served that many
people everyday!
Tucson Unified School District is 132 years old. The
Central Food Services Kitchen opened approximately 30 years
ago. Prior to that, the main kitchen was located at Pueblo
High School. Eighty-two percent of Tucson children attend TUSD
and we are one of the largest school districts in the nation
(52nd). We serve more than 7.5 million meals each
year. We could pave the road to Chicago if we lined up all of
those cafeteria trays.
The Central Kitchen is organized into several production
areas:
Main Dish
The Main Dish staff start working early in the morning
several hours before many of us are getting out of bed. Dishes
such as spaghetti, creamed chicken, taco meat, pizza, sauces,
and sloppy joes are produced.
Salad and Catering
The staff in this area starts work at 3:00 a.m. They clean
and prepare fresh fruits and vegetables for sites and catering
requests. They make salads and salad dressings and set up the
fresh fruits, salads, and lettuce for delivery everyday.
Sandwich
This room is set at a cooler temperature than any other
area in the building (except the warehouse freezer). The cool
temperature protects sandwich ingredients from spoilage and
contamination during assembly. We make between 1300 – 5000
sandwiches and 500 -1000 submarine “grinders” everyday.
All the meats for the sandwiches are sliced in this room using
a special meat slicer. We can stack the meats up in the hopper
and slice several kinds of meat at the same time, or a large
quantity of the same meat all at once.
Bakery
The bakery staff also start their day before the sun comes
up. If we have cookies on the menu, the staff will prepare the
cookie dough and then bake about 25,000 cookies.
Cleaning & Storage
Other areas of the central kitchen include the Dish Machine
area, which holds a giant pot, and pan machine big enough to
wash a small car. Using its large rotating blades this machine
can wash 49 big trays in just 6 minutes and may be run up to
30 times a day. The Pot and Cart Storage area holds transit
cabinets which can be rolled right on to the delivery trucks
and plastic boxes used to transfer cookies, vegetables, fruits
and other items that can be transported at room temperature,
(Also stored there are red warmers to keep the food warm until
serving time, and silver vacuum thermo containers used to
transport hot and cold foods.)
The central kitchen facility is adjacent to the loading
doc, warehouse, freezer, and central administrative offices.
As you may have imagined by now – it’s a busy place from
pre-dawn to dusk. Next time you serve sugar cookies,
sandwiches, or spaghetti remember all the busy hands and
powerful equipment it took to make our special customers
happy.
Excerpts from TUSD Food Services Central Kitchen Tour
Guide, Camilla Loehrer
School Meals
and Services | Menu and Nutrient
Analysis |
Nutrition Information & Resources
| The Fun Side of Food |
Activities | Employment
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