Press Releases
Shady Side Academy Improves Student Health with Milk Makeover Grant
PHILADELPHIA (February 16, 2007) – To improve student health and enhance the milk served at school, Shady Side Academy in Fox Chapel recently received a $1,000 grant from the Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association to purchase a new refrigerated milk cooler.
Shady Side Academy qualified for this grant by offering milk in a contemporary, plastic, resealable container and adding vanilla and strawberry milk as options for students. As a result, the school is experiencing increases in milk sales and milk consumption, as well as a great deal of positive feedback.
“The students have responded well to the new packaging, which is very cutting-edge,” said Yvonne Phillips, general manager for Metz and Associates, which provides the school’s foodservice. “Every student now takes one or two milks and I estimate a 20 percent increase in milk sales.” Schneider’s Dairy of Pittsburgh provides Shady Side Academy with the innovative milk containers, which feature an attractive label and an easy-to-open cap.
“The new ‘got milk?’ open-front cooler is a hit in our high school,” Philips said. “It’s full at the beginning of the first lunch shift and we have to refill it between each wave.”
The improvements are part of the New Look of School Milk program, which was started in response to the 2001 School Milk Pilot Test co-sponsored by the National Dairy Council and the American School Foodservice Association. The test found that making key improvements increases milk sales by 18 percent and school meal participation by 5 percent in secondary schools. Students would also consume 37 percent more of the milk they take.
“The School Milk Pilot Test showed that enhancing milk in four key areas, including packaging, flavor variety, temperature and availability increases milk consumption, as well as school meal participation,” said Janette Carpentier, vice president of school marketing for Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association. “Children’s low calcium intake is recognized as a major public health problem, and increasing milk consumption at school helps students meet their calcium need and builds stronger bones and better bodies.”
For more information about how schools in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, northern Virginia and New Jersey can receive a grant from Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association, call (215) 627-8800 or visit www.dairyspot.com.
Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association is the local planning and management organization responsible for increasing demand for U.S.-produced dairy products on behalf of America’s dairy farmers. Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association works closely with Dairy Management, Inc.™, the national dairy promotion organization, to implement dairy promotion, education and research programs nationwide. The dairy farmer checkoff program funds both organizations.