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In the wake of misinformation in the community, the School Board of Lee County got an update on how the P.O.W.E.R Buying Group is used for the meals students eat during the school day.
School Board Attorney Kathie Dupuy-Bruno said the P.O.W.E.R. Buying Group allows the district to combine with other counties to get the best possible price for food needed to serve students.
The group currently works with 29 districts, with the School District of Lee County being the largest district under contract. The district has worked with the P.O.W.E.R. Buying Group since 2003.
"From an emergency standpoint there has been a food supply chain problem throughout the United States in getting food, produce and stock items we need," Dupuy-Bruno said.
In August 2021, the United State Department of Agriculture sent a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis stating that they recognized there was a problem to the food supply chain. The letter further stated that they would like to ensure the school district is able to meet requirements of healthy nutritional food.
"The Florida Department of Agriculture sent us a letter, we want to give you as many liberties as we possibly can to ensure you are able to continue to feed your children," Dupuy-Bruno said.
That allowed for the suspension of procurement requirements to provide the district with the opportunity to use emergency procurement services.
"In addition, the district was very proactive in recognizing there was an issue and began to look into what can we do to ensure our students are fed," she said.
On Nov. 15, 2021, Superintendent Dr. Ken Savage sent a memorandum to the board to advise that he was going to use the emergency procurement, which resulted in an additional contract.
"We spend approximately $26 million on food," Dupuy-Bruno said. "That was already approved by the board during the summer time."
On June 22, 2021, there was an approval to piggyback Osceola County RFP for the distribution of food and non-food products for the P.O.W.E.R. Buying Group for $26,750,000. On Oct. 19, 2021, there was another approval for the emergency purchase of food, related supplies, storage and delivery for an additional $8,250,000 bringing the total amount of $35,000,000.
"We were asking for $8.25 million to bring it up to $35 million to cover other costs of warehousing, storage and transportation of food," Dupuy-Bruno said.
On Jan. 11, the board voted on the ratification of contracts for emergency purchase of food, storage and delivery of main groceries to the site locations. Those included Sysco through the P.O.W.E.R Buying Group contract of $20,000,000, Florida Freezer for $935,610 and O.C. Trucking to deliver to all 81 kitchens for $4.2 million for a total of $25,135,610.
Dupuy-Bruno said it is her understanding that Sysco is working on getting a fleet of trucks, so these additional transportation costs and warehouse costs won't be needed. She said there is an end point to this additional cost.
Food & Nutrition Services Director Kandace Messenger said for many years the district has had one distributor, U.S. Foods, which delivered food to all of the district's kitchens.
"We were notified the first day of school that U.S. Foods was going to end that contract effective of Dec. 31. I need food for feeding 87,000 meals a day. U.S. Food starting cutting our deliveries. They cut us back to 9,000 cases to feed our students. We needed to bring in direct deliveries to cover what we needed to feed our students," she said. "We were able to secure a vendor through the P.O.W.E.R Buying Group that will supply us groceries."
The new vendor, Sysco, can only deliver to one location in the district, rather than all 81 kitchens, she said.
"We had to find a warehouse that can handle and store our food appropriately because the amount of food to feed our students in a week is 12,000 cases of groceries. This isn't produce, or milk," Messenger said. It is items such as frozen food, canned goods, cereal products, crackers and grains, as well as some refrigerated food such as eggs and yogurt.
The milk vendor delivers both milk and juice directly to the schools.
As of March 22, fresh produce is delivered from a Hernando County Schools Fresh Produce bid with vendor Brian Puzycki's Farm Fresh, LLC and through the USDA Department of Defense Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Program vendor Oakes Farms Food & Distribution Services, LLC.
"Our produce has always been delivered to our schools by our vendor. We are very proud in the fact that we have been able to sustain our students. We are getting back on track with the amount of food that we needed," Messenger said.
She said they wash and wrap fruits that have skin on them so they are ready for students to consume.