Elementary, middle and high school students may not be as compelled to complain about their “meatloaf surprise” menu for a hot lunch, thanks to the teamwork of ISU professors and faculty on recipe standardization.

Mary Gregoire, professor and chairwoman of apparel, educational studies and hospitality management, was approached by the National Food Service Management Institute with a $154,000 grant to create an innovative recipe standardization process for food-service managers and employees across the nation.

Gregoire said her project is part of a larger project designed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help school food service directors enhance the quality of meals.

Gregoire and Heather Brumm, lead project coordinator for multimedia projects at the Instructional Technology Center, and a group of other specialists have worked two years in creating a CD-ROM, video and manual.

This package will be sent to eight school districts, including Nevada, for the final testing stages sometime in early spring.

The manual and CD-ROM target food-service managers, and the video targets food-service employees. Both parts explain the importance of standardized recipes and the process of creating them.

A standardized recipe, as defined by the national food service management institute, produces the same results every time when exact procedures are used with the same type of equipment and ingredients.

“If you make a small kettle of soup, it takes a certain amount of liquid, but if were then to triple of quadruple that, you would not have as much liquid because you would now have a denser product,” Gregoire said.

“You’re not losing or evaporating quite as much. Those are the kinds of changes you have to work through in a scientific way to determine what changes I need to make with this recipe and do I need to increase or decrease the quantity.”

Knowing exactly how many ingredients to purchase, calculating the nutrient content, understanding the cost and determining the yield are all benefits to recipe standardization, Gregoire said.

This particular project was unique, especially for Blumm.

Although creating learning programs and materials on CD-ROM for ISU classroom purposes is part of her job, Blumm said she experienced some different challenges.

“I had never done a project that had to have the combination of manual, video and CD-ROM,” she said. “I’ve never had a project of this magnitude. But I do enjoy the process of trying to figure out how to solve problems.”

Teamwork is a necessary part of the project, Blumm said.

“Collaborating is more common than not in a project such as this,” she said.

“I’m not a graphic artist. I’m not a videographer, but my projects will many times have elements of both, especially graphics, and I do rely on the help of other people who are specialists.”

Marty Ellenberger and Ed Rearick were the primary videographers. Brumm and Mike Wilson worked together on the CD-ROM, and Donna Halloum was responsible for the manual. Rich Beachler was the graphic artist.

Both Gregoire and Brumm sought to create a new way of conceptualizing and organizing the material on recipe standardization from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and national food-service management institution in a more concise, comprehensive way.

Gregoire said the project has received nothing but positive feedback from the USDA and National Food Service Management Institute since its preliminary testing stages.

Although Nevada food-service director Diana Weber has not yet completed the final testing in her operation, she gives it a definite thumbs up.

“I have previewed the material, and it’s excellent,” she said.

The manual has been completed and sent in for final evaluation. The goal is for everything to be ready in early February.

“We will be so excited to see it in final form,” Gregoire said.