Earlier this week, I learned from a number of alarmed Houston parents that our district’s Nutrition Services department is entering into a four-year, $8 million contract to bring Domino’s “Smart Slice” pizza to our school cafeterias.
Even more distressing: the contract was arranged by our nutrition services director, Betti Wiggins, who’s hailed nationally as a school food visionary, and who expressly promised to rid Houston’s schools of just this sort of “carnival food.” From a local Houston news story reporting on Wiggins’s arrival last fall:
“Pizza and hot dogs and corn dogs — that’s carnival food,” said Betti Wiggins, HISD Officer of Nutrition Services. “Those are foods that we shouldn’t be talking about to represent a good diet that’s nutritious to our kids.”
Domino’s created Smart Slice specifically to capitalize on the school food market, by tweaking its standard pizza’s ingredients to comply with school nutrition standards. Since introducing it in 2011, the company has aggressively promoted Smart Slice to schools as a sure-fire way to boost revenue, claiming that “80% of districts report increased participation with Smart Slice.” As of 2016, Domino’s was selling the pizza to more than 6,000 districts in 47 states, figures I’m guessing are significantly higher today.
But central to the success of Smart Slice is that it looks to students just like the real thing — especially since it’s served to kids in Domino’s-branded cardboard boxes or printed paper sleeves, and/or near Domino’s-branded signage:
This brand recognition is critical to Smart Slice’s success. In a Domino’s promotional video for Smart Slice, one satisfied school food director says of her students, “I think they’re just excited to have a brand name, because we market it as, ‘It’s Domino’s day.'” A Smart Slice brochure quotes a school food director saying, “Our students request Domino’s Smart Slice pizza by the brand!” And the company sponsors a “Smart Rewards” program in which districts can redeem points for yet more Domino’s-branded items, like hats and aprons for school food workers, because, in the words of another nutrition director in the promotional video, “Just the name Domino’s sells the product.”
And therein lies the problem.
Smart Slice is what’s known as “copycat” product: a food that’s been tweaked to meet school “Smart Snacks” nutritional standards, but using the same brand name and trade dress of its junk-food counterpart:
Copycat products are troubling for three reasons. First, although they’re (somewhat) “better-for-you” than their restaurant or supermarket counterparts, these products only reinforce kids’ love of hyper-palatable, highly-processed food. Second, they’re so intrinsically appealing that their mere presence in the cafeteria makes healthier items an even harder sell. (How many kids will choose a salad that’s offered next to slices of Domino’s?) But worst of all: children have no clue that copycat food is slightly more nutritious, so each time they see it in their schools — a place of learning — they receive an implicit message that branded fast food and junk food are a normal part of one’s daily or weekly diet.
When I first learned of the Domino’s contract, I felt sucker-punched — but I also felt reluctant to write about it. As many of you know, I’ve been one of Wiggins’s most vocal champions: On this blog, I trumpeted her arrival to Houston parents (“Houston Parents, Rejoice: Betti Wiggins Is Coming to Houston ISD!” and “A Happy Day in Houston ISD“) and last year I even penned a Houston Chronicle op-ed to garner wider public support her efforts. And on a personal level, I very much like “Miss Betti” (as she’s known by all), which makes me especially uncomfortable criticizing her publicly. But I finally had to acknowledge to myself that if Aramark, our former food service management company, had signed this same Domino’s contract, I’d be the first one to call them out — loudly. So I told Wiggins yesterday that I was writing this post, and we spoke on the phone early this morning.
Here’s what I learned. According to Wiggins, Domino’s pizza will not be offered or sold in any elementary school, nor will it be included in the reimbursable school meal at any grade level — except for use as an “emergency meal” in schools dealing with a power outage or other temporary logistical issues. It will, however, be available on a daily basis to all middle and high school students on their cafeteria’s “a la carte” line. And while the contract has been described as a “four-year” deal, Wiggins says it’s actually a one-year contract with options to renew for the following three years.
But why is Wiggins teaming up with Domino’s in the first place? “We’ve got to have a source of pizza,” she told me, “because our kids are going to ask for it in our a la carte line.” While Wiggins would prefer to entice students with a district-made pizza, she says it couldn’t include enough cheese to please students while also meeting the Smart Snacks standards. (She says that Domino’s gets over this hurdle by using “artificial cheese.”**) But at a different point in our conversation, she also acknowledged the power of the Domino’s name to drive sales. “Branding,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t know how to defeat it. They [students] see a box with a name on it, that’s where they’re going.”
And why is Wiggins offering kids daily a la carte pizza (regardless of who makes it), given her stated opposition to “carnival food?” The answer, predictably, is money. “I still run a business,” Wiggins said. “And I don’t want to have to at the end of the year look to the [district’s] general fund and say ‘I’m $5 million short, please pay my bills.'” So Wiggins says she sees the partnership with Domino’s as an unfortunate necessity. “This is a delicate balance act that we play,” she said, “and I’m not selling candy bars. But I’ve got to find a way to get incremental income. That’s a shame to say.”
But for whatever it’s worth, I should also mention that in the same Domino’s promotional video cited above, I was quite surprised to see that one of the school nutrition directors extolling Smart Slice on camera is Wiggins herself, in an interview filmed when she was still working in Detroit. (She appears briefly at the 6:12 mark.)
There’s no doubt that Wiggins has made a lot of positive changes in Houston just in her first 14 months on the job. She says she’s dramatically increased our school supper participation, going from serving an average of 6,000 meals a week to 90,000. That’s a meaningful statistic in a district with over 80 percent of students living near or below the poverty line, and with many families still suffering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey last August. She’s also succeeded in getting Community Eligibility Provision certification for the entire district, meaning meals are now free for all students, regardless of income level.
Wiggins has also made a variety of nutritional improvements, including placing a salad bar in every one of Houston’s elementary schools, as of this coming school year. She also says she’s working to get more sliced fruits into meals for younger grade levels (where kids often throw away whole fruits that are too challenging to eat) and to bring more nutrition education into schools, including a facsimile of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program for schools that don’t qualify because they’re not in high poverty areas.
And Wiggins did express a general discomfort with her overall reliance on a la carte sales, which also includes ice cream that’s available to all children, including those in elementary school, as well as a variety of chips and other snacks at all grade levels. All told, Wiggins says she derives about $9 million a year from these sales. “I want to get rid of Smart Snacks, period. I’ve just got to figure out a way to not sell a la carte. But $9 million — I can’t pooh pooh that.”
If Congress were willing to adequately fund school food, no district would need to sell a la carte snacks to scrape by. If Houston ISD wasn’t in such a financial mess right now (and if the majority of our school board prioritized student nutrition, something that’s never been true for as long as I’ve lived here), the district could use its general fund to close the gap in Wiggins’s budget. If Houston principals would stop turning a blind eye to rampant violations of state and federal school food fundraising regulations, and if Houston PTAs would stop sacrificing student health to raise money, Wiggins wouldn’t feel she has to compete with junk food sold at fundraising tables and in many school stores.
Those are all real challenges, and I’m very sympathetic to them. In the end, though, I still regard the Domino’s move as a serious misstep, and I sincerely hope Wiggins will wean her department’s budget off of Smart Slice sales long before the contract expires.
But when I told Wiggins how I was going to come out on the issue in this post, she was only supportive. “I’m a big girl,” she told me, “and you have to do your job, just like I have to do mine.”
** EDITED 8/2/18 at 7:45pm CST: I just verified on the Domino’s website that the product uses 100% low-fat mozzarella cheese. I suspect Wiggins was just using a sort of verbal shorthand in our discussion.
** Here’s an important follow-up to this post: “That Domino’s Smart Slice Post: The Ending I Wish I’d Written”
*** And here’s how Houston ISD officials blatantly lied about this contract before a vote was taken by our school board.
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Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2018 Bettina Elias Siegel
Kristen Beddard says
sadly, it all comes down to money which in my opinion shouldn’t be a player in the health of our children.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Agreed. Sigh.
Mary says
You know our country is failing where more funding goes for military/war, but not education, or feeding it’s children properly. I am glad you spoke with her, and I understand more why she is doing it. I get the feeling there’s not much choice for her.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Thank you for that!
Sara says
With this successful contract, other nutritional directors will have a green light to consider similar contracts for their districts.
I wonder if this choice was put before the SHAC ?
Bettina Elias Siegel says
I’m sure the SHAC was not brought into the discussion and, at any rate, the Domino’s is Smart Snacks compliant, so it wouldn’t violate the wellness policy.
Justin Gagnon says
You realize that “it all comes down to money” isn’t the root issue, right? It all comes down to PARTICIPATION. Increased funding isn’t going to do anything to help sell more lunches. Even if Betti had an additional $9MM in funding that would allow her to discontinue serving a la carte, that doesn’t mean the students who were buying the a la carte food options would suddenly start buying compliant meals. Most of them would likely just stop buying altogether.
“While Wiggins would prefer to entice students with a district-made pizza, she says it couldn’t include enough cheese to please students while also meeting the Smart Snacks standards.” Yes, such is life under the current NSLP regulations. Stricter regulation doesn’t necessarily make lunches healthier, it just makes it harder for food service directors to serve real foods and forces them into the arms of big food providers who have the R&D budgets to figure out how to make a “compliant” offering. Sounds like the driving factor behind pizza coming from Domino’s instead of being made in-house by HUSD is the Smart Snack regulations themselves. Ironic, no?
More congressional funding isn’t going to do any good to increase participation if the students don’t want to buy what the district is selling. In this case, more funding would only cover up what is essentially a participation issue.
As for the branding, the pizza is coming from Domino’s, isn’t it? Why would they not leverage their brand to promote a product that is indeed their own? And what if the contract would have been awarded to a brand that’s perceived as “more healthy”? I’m not familiar with the pizzerias in Houston, but a Google search for “healthy pizza Houston” turned up Pink’s Pizza. If they had won the contract, would you be equally disturbed? And if not, what is the material difference between the Domino’s product and the Pink’s product at the end of the day? I’d challenge that the same brand perception effect of Domino’s that is driving excitement among the students is what’s causing you to recoil. The students just hold a positive brand perception of Domino’s, and you hold the inverse.
As much as I think the critique of this decision is a little harsh for the reality of the situation (IMO, there are much bigger issues in school food than a la carte pizza in middle and high schools), I do love that you’re willing to be critical of someone who you clearly respect. I love her response, too!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Justin:
Thank you, as always, for taking the time to come by and leave thoughtful comments that always force me to check my assumptions and refine my thinking! Let me try to answer these points one by one:
First, you seem to think I’m somehow offended that Domino’s would dare to “leverage their brand to promote a product that is indeed their own.” To the contrary, I wouldn’t expect them to do anything else! In researching my book, I’ve found all kinds of frank admissions from food corporations and/or their marketers showing they believe it’s utterly *essential to get their brands in front of kids early and often, as research shows these brand exposures lead to lifelong loyalties. And, of course, schools are an ideal place to reach an entirely captive, young audience. (E.g., McDonald’s former CEO once told investors that it was critical that McD franchisees “get into schools.”) So I think the ability to introduce all those Domino’s-branded boxes, sleeves, signage into cafeterias is a key motivator behind the entire Smart Slice enterprise, on a par with — or perhaps even more important to Domino’s — than the actual revenue from sales.
That said, it’s always been my position that schools should be a commercial-free zone. So while I think you’re implicitly saying I’m a bit of food snob (no offense taken 🙂 ), from my perspective, whether it’s aggressive Domino’s branding or aggressive Pink’s branding, it truly makes no difference to me. (But I love that you did some Houston research – though, for the record, I’ve never heard that Pink’s pizza was particularly healthy!)
Third, while I strive to be a realist (I believe my post shows that I’m keenly aware of the challenges faced by school food operations), there is a point at which I have to cling to my ideals. And in that respect, I simply don’t believe it’s ever appropriate for schools to offer pizza on a daily basis to kids as young as age 11. Doing so teaches children all the wrong lessons about what a reasonable diet should look like, and it only reinforces their love of unhealthy food (because, as you correctly state, we know Domino’s crack R&D team has done everything in its power to make Smart Slice taste just like its unhealthy counterpart.)
And that leads me to your last and most important point. You say I’ve mistaken a funding gap for a participation gap. But I confess I really don’t follow this logic. First, there are districts that don’t sell any ALC. E.g., Bertrand Weber in Minneapolis completely eliminated ALC, yet his operation is now turning a profit, or so I’m told.
Second, if we could wave the magic wand and get Congress to give Betti her $9MM, wouldn’t she be able to use that extra money to greatly improve the food on her reimbursable line, thus drawing more kids into the program?
Or perhaps you’re saying some kids are so stubbornly resistant to any food that doesn’t bear a junk food/fast food label, schools have an affirmative obligation to offer “better-for-you” versions of branded junk food just to keep them fed. And if that’s your view, I think you and I will never see eye-to-eye. I simply don’t believe that’s the proper role of the National School Lunch Program.
To quote Bertrand Weber: “I’m not a convenience store, I’m here to serve meals to kids. The purpose of the national school lunch program is to serve the best quality breakfast and lunch.”
– Bettina
Justin Gagnon says
I hear you on the pizza everyday and agree. Every day seems excessive, though just because it’s offered everyday doesn’t mean the same kids are eating it every day. My high school had pizza a la carte, and I’d grab a slice maybe once or twice a week when I was super busy at lunch. To be honest, I didn’t even know there was a “full meal” option in my high school – I thought everything was a la carte.
We probably just disagree on branding in the cafeteria environment. Almost all products are branded. The dairy has a brand on their milk. Dominos is on the box. Even growers are catching on and branding things like “Cuties”. I have no problem with Domino’s being on the box. Now, if we’re talking about Domino’s deploying marketing dollars into SIGNAGE in the cafeteria environment, that’s a a different story. Brand the products, fine. But you don’t get unlimited access to deploy advertising into the cafeteria. This should be on the foodservice director to curtail this though. It’s their show, let them run it.
I think your assumption that Domino’s has pursued the Smart Slice program as a pure branding play and a nefarious effort to get their hooks into kids early is misguided though. How many pizza suppliers do you think would actually be able to deliver on an $8MM contract? Very few, and the ones that can are probably named Domino’s and Papa John’s. I don’t believe their driving motivation is brand building. Their primary motivation is driving sales in a different channel during a time of day when their stores are relatively dormant. And since the Smart Snack regulations create an extra hurdle from an R&D perspective, only the chains with hundreds and even thousands of stores across the country are willing to tackle it, because if they solve this R&D challenge, they can create incremental sales across the country. A small 6 store pizza chain wouldn’t take on that R&D challenge, even if they could logistically execute on the contract. Relax the Smart Snack requirements, and you give Foodservice Directors like Betti the ability to make her pizza in-house. You’ll also get some bad actors who will abuse the lack of regulation and serve junk food again. The point I’d make there is 1) they’re still serving junk food, just junk food that’s positioned as healthier because they meet the USDA’s requirement, and 2) it’s the responsibility of the community and the school board to hold their foodservice department accountable for serving healthy meals that meet with their communities values. If you want Betti to do her job effectively, remove constraints instead of adding more.
My point in the $9MM funding gap is that even if Betti magically had the $9MM, this would only allow her to stop serving Domino’s a la carte. No other improvements could be made with this money, because this money would simply fill the void left by the revenue gap from a la carte. Or she could keep a la carte, and use the $9MM to make the full meal better and more attractive, and attempt to cannibalize the a la carte sales with full meal sales. In high schools in particular though, you run the risk of losing that customer entirely in favor of off-campus options (if it’s an open campus) or food from home.
I think Bertrand Weber is omitting a critical factor in school lunch as it relates to the national school lunch program. If the meals meet the subject standard of “the best quality breakfast and lunch” but THE STUDENTS DON’T EAT IT, then the objective of the program is not being accomplished. If the kids don’t eat it, it doesn’t matter.
Here’s copy from the USDA’s own landing page: “The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day.” I’d even argue that extending oversight to a la carte and even full paid meals is overreaching in this aim. But I’m fairly confident you and I are going to disagree quite vigorously on that one 😉
As always, love your passion and your openness to dialogue!
bw1 says
“Even if Betti had an additional $9MM in funding that would allow her to discontinue serving a la carte, that doesn’t mean the students who were buying the a la carte food options would suddenly start buying compliant meals. Most of them would likely just stop buying altogether.”
First of all, I don’t think that’s as likely as you say it is. On a closed campus (and that is an option for any school) your scenario requires that teenage boys who are unaccustomed to packing a lunch either a) go hungry when food is available, or b) make huge overnight strides in personal organization and planning to consistently pack a lunch. Maybe when the Stanley Cup Final is played on the river Styx (then again, I’m taking Bettina’s side here, so anything’s possible.)
“In this case, more funding would only cover up what is essentially a participation issue.”
There is no participation issue. The goal is students eating (preferably healthy) lunch. Participation is but one of many means to that end. A secondary goal is that goods consumed and labor utilized to meet that end are paid for. While I may not support Bettina’s call for more funding, she offers it as a means, not an end unto itself.
“I’d challenge that the same brand perception effect of Domino’s that is driving excitement among the students is what’s causing you to recoil.”
Well, that and the fact that Domino’s profits drive a lot of campaign contributions to candidates who are anything but progressive, but Bettina’s motives don’t determine whether she’s right.
JoAnne Robinett says
What a shame that Betti can be SO GOOD, that she can do SO MANY positive things, –and in an effort to pay the bills that need to be paid — she is judged for offering a pizza product* to tweens and teens (who are able to make their own decisions about foods they eat outside of school) – *a product that meets the USDA established standards for sodium, calories and saturated fat content.
CN operations need money to pay bills, to replace equipment, to train staff, and to create an atmosphere where kids want to eat. So, maybe she isn’t the perfect director you would create – but she is good for Houston, and she is GOOD ENOUGH!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
JoAnne — I feel you’ve misinterpreted my intent in writing this post. It’s not in any way an angry rant against Betti Wiggins, whom I continue to respect greatly, but instead an attempt to explain to laypeople the very challenges you just articulated. But yes, I am also firmly against the sale of copycat snacks in school cafeterias, a viewpoint I’ve articulated for as long as I’ve been writing this blog (you can search the term if you’d like to see prior posts), and my admiration for Ms. Wiggins doesn’t change that view.
Orell Fitzsimmons says
Two things about the Food Service Department at HISD. (1)When my son, Guthrie was a Travis there was a coke machine across the hall from his classroom. The Princple loved it because most of the money went to her slush fund. The parents objected and got the cokes removed from Travis and from the entire district. We should not allow corporate America to advertise on hisd campuses for any product. (2) Some Food Service workers only work 4 hours a day and make less than $15,000 a year. All 2000 employees are living in poverty which is abuse and cheeping out on our children’s education on what good eating is only creates life long problems with food consumption. You get what you pay for in this world and the HISD Food Service is selling the nutritional health of our children for $9 million.
Lindsey Parsons says
It’s one thing to offer a slice of pizza made by Domino’s that kids like better. I’d probably do the same if I were serving pizza. It a whole other thing to allow their marketing into your school, use their name on the menu, etc. That I strongly object to and it would be the part I advocated against. That and the frequency of offering it. In Maryland we are using our School Food Environment Grades rubric (through Healthy School Food Maryland) to decrease the frequency of pizza statewide. To get a 4 (the highest grade) in Variety and Repetition, you can’t offer pizza more than 2x/week in secondary schools or 1x/week in elementary schools. Thanks to that, this past May, Montgomery County decreased pizza in elementary from twice to once a week. That was huge for them!
Deepa says
Its time that we as parents and food manufacturers work collectively to introduce healthy options using creative marketing message that focuses on the well being of the person.
Just introducing “copy cat” foods to meet regulations does not improve the quality of the food.
Nutrition, hydration is a core of all the human bodies……feeding our kids “copy cat foods” and expecting them to do well both mentally and physically is just unrealistic.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
I agree, Deepa! Thanks for your comment.