Powering Potential Q&A
In celebration of National Nutrition Month, Aramark Student Nutrition recently hosted a Q&A session with Beth Ann Engelland, Vice President of Culinary & Nutrition and Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN).
Beth Ann's journey with Aramark Student Nutrition is a testament to our commitment to student nutrition. Starting as an RDN, she has grown her career over the last decade, leading the operations and menu development for the K-12 districts we serve. In our conversation, she passionately shares how her team is instrumental in instilling nutrition in our national menus and how our RDNs are empowering students to achieve their nutritional goals.
Aramark Student Nutrition: Anyone who works with you (or worked with you in the past) knows your fervor for student nutrition. We’re interested to see how it started and led up to what you’re doing today.
Beth Ann: There are really two reasons why I chose this profession. I struggled with food sensitivities and food allergies as a young child, and I learned very quickly that what I ate directly impacted how I was feeling. That base understanding built my curiosity; I wasn’t happy knowing I couldn’t eat certain foods; I needed to understand why I couldn’t eat them. Additionally, my whole life, I have been a student-athlete. This curiosity about food turned into a drive to know how I could perform better and the best foods to eat before a competition. Once I learned I could go to school for nutrition—I was sold (initially, I declared my major as chemistry!).
After college, I completed my dietetic internship with Loyola in Chicago and loved all my rotations. However, I indeed loved the rotation of educating students in schools and my food service rotation. Naturally, the first place I looked for a job was in school food service! I was fortunate to find a role with Aramark Student Nutrition right after graduating from my dietetic internship, and almost twelve years later, I've never looked back!
I started as a food service manager/dietitian and worked my way up to food service director. Then, I shifted into support when I went into a project manager role with the Culinary & Nutrition team when we were transitioning menu systems. My primary responsibility was training Food Service Directors on our new menu system and how to stay compliant with child nutrition regulations. I was then promoted to the District Manager role over the Wisconsin territory and led a fantastic team of directors and general managers.
"I was fortunate to find a role with Aramark Student Nutrition right after graduating from my dietetic internship, and almost twelve years later, I've never looked back!"
This brings me to this current role, where I have a powerhouse team of Dietitians, and we are responsible for our Student Nutrition menu strategy. Instead of educating students and learning wellness classes, I am now educating our partners (superintendents) as to what sets our Aramark Student Nutrition program apart. Don’t get me wrong; I’m still “nerding” out pairing broccoli and spinach with orange smiles to make the iron more bioavailable for absorption! I just love the challenge of balancing nutrition-related pieces of my role and my operations experience—it gives me a holistic view of our business and our true impact across the nation.
What I’ve appreciated most about working for Aramark is the company's career opportunities; you can expand your skillsets and explore other functional areas within the business, like in my case.
Aramark Student Nutrition: As Vice President of Culinary & Nutrition, you are responsible for ensuring our national menus meet nutritional guidelines for the districts we serve. What do you say is your team’s “recipe for success” to accomplish this objective?
Beth Ann: First and foremost, a significant goal for our menus is to exceed the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines. Our café menus always feature fresh fruits and vegetables with various delicious meal options packed full of nutrients for students to choose from, available at each meal of the school day. Our culinary menus are also designed to meet many dietary restrictions, including vegetarian and allergen-friendly options.
As a Dietitian, I understand how crucial breakfast is in fueling students' academics and development, especially in communities impacted by food insecurity. According to the School Nutrition Association, data shows that students who participate regularly in school breakfast tend to have better attendance rates and fewer behavioral problems. Our marketing teams have created fun promotions and resources to help drive awareness of our school breakfast program, including recently celebrating National School Breakfast Week across districts nationwide.
We’re continuously innovating new ways to get students excited about their school meals. To address menu fatigue, we offer limited-time offers (LTOs), created by our Culinary Alliance chefs, on our menus each month that introduce a unique, flavorful twist on traditional and cultural meals they know. We know our students are Gen Alpha, and when it comes to food, they are extremely open-minded—and we love seeing the students sample our new offerings!
"We know our students are Gen Alpha, and when it comes to food, they are extremely open-minded—and we love seeing the students sample our new offerings!"
Hearing from our constituents helps our teams improve our operations and drive meal participation. Last year, we refreshed our proprietary, comprehensive engagement platform with SN Insights 360 to help link the feedback with our nutrition and culinary programs to offer healthy, great-tasting options for the school year. Using the feedback from parents and students, our culinary team was able to create regional menu items featuring local ingredients and recipes that students may be more familiar with and willing to try!
Aramark Student Nutrition: That’s amazing to hear! What would you say were your proudest moments so far?
Beth Ann: Something my team and I have been incredibly proud of, and that is dear to our hearts, was launching the Nutrition Network within Aramark Student Nutrition last year. This initiative combines the resources of more than 60 Registered Dietitian Nutritionists across the line of business to network, share information and best practices, address LOB-specific efforts, pilot ideas, and provide training and education opportunities to support their career growth. In addition, our RDNs can further network across the enterprise by joining Aramark’s Nourish employee resource group (ERG).
One significant accomplishment from the Nutrition Network this school year was partnering with Feed Your Potential 365 to develop a new blog series called “What’s A Parent to Do?” This program features our RDNs, chefs, and other industry experts to answer the top questions we hear from parents and provides more in-depth insights, ideas, and information to help them tackle the toughest but most rewarding job there is. It’s been super rewarding to address popular topics such as dealing with picky eaters, talking nutrition with kids, getting them to try fruits and veggies, and much more! It’s imperative to our districts that we have resources for parents available both in school and at home.
We’re also developing an extensive career development plan for our RDNs to help them grow their careers, whether vertically in operations, moving into clinical, or exploring other functions like myself. I'm honored to be part of this next step in building out a career path for RDNs and excited to see the future growth of the program with Aramark Student Nutrition!
