Leaders in Vermont schools and local food networks are expressing a mixture of hope and concern following the recent acquisition of a local family-run food service provider by a larger, out-of-state company.
Whitsons, a New York-based food service company backed by private equity firm GenNx360 Capital Partners, announced last month that it had acquired The Abbey Group, a longstanding food provider based in Enosburg Falls. The Abbey Group currently holds contracts with schools to serve meals in a dozen Vermont counties, and operates several corporate food courts, including in the Vermont State House.
The acquisition comes at a tough moment for schools working to connect with local producers after cuts to federal school lunch programs in March. But Karen Dittrich, a senior vice president at Whitsons, said the new parent company was committed to maintaining the Abbey Group’s connections with local providers.
The sale marks Whitsons’ second acquisition of a smaller food service company serving Vermont in as many years. Last year, the company purchased Fresh Picks Café. Whitsons’ expansion into Vermont has raised larger questions for local leaders about what kind of management is most effective for school nutrition programs.
Fresh Picks’ contract with the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union — one of the company’s major Vermont relationships — didn’t last long following Whitsons’ takeover last year.
According to Susan Grabowski, the supervisory union’s food program coordinator, the Whitsons’ acquisition of Fresh Picks instantly caused problems.
The new food operator failed to meet the agreed-upon bar for local food purchases, according to Grabowski. There were issues with quality control, portion sizes, and allowances for extra helpings. By the fall, Grabowski said, she was getting daily complaints from students and families.
Additionally, she said, poor treatment and wages caused a higher rate of staff turnover. Grabowski felt cut off from the provider’s corporate office, though there were eventually some improvements after school officials complained to Whitsons management.
“It just became harder and harder to get information that we needed … and to get the food that we wanted to be able to serve to our students,” Grabowski said.
Whitsons declined to comment on its former contract with Windham Southeast.
In December, a team that included Grabowski presented a proposal to the school board to end the contract with Fresh Picks Café and Whitsons and transition to a self-operated kitchen with a greater emphasis on local food. The board agreed, despite the extra expense the change would incur.
Food service costs will rise from $2.4 million to roughly $2.6 million annually in addition to some transitional costs, the supervisory union’s business administrator Frank Rucker told the Bennington Banner earlier this year.
It’s money, Grabowski noted, that not every school board might feel able to spare even if it wanted to separate from external food providers. With historic financial restructuring on the horizon for Vermont schools, and a number of preliminary school budgets already failing, local leaders might be wary of costly new projects.
On top of state-level changes, local-focused school lunch programs across the state were hit by federal budget cuts this spring, which froze funding from the Local Food for Schools and Child Care Cooperative Agreement and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. Earlier this year, the state legislature approved one-time funding that essentially replaced federal payouts for the latter program, but in coming years, school districts cannot expect that money to recur.
“School nutrition is not safe from the pressures of other food service operations,” said Grabowski. “It feels like we’re at a crossroads.”
Kris Nelson, the Farm-to-School program manager at Food Connects in Brattleboro, said that working with a self-run provider is an inherently different dynamic. She has worked with the Windham Southeast program through both the Fresh Picks era and the current transitional period.
“It’s not that [outside] companies aren’t able to make real headway in terms of purchasing locally,” she said. “One of the main distinctions is just simply that [self-operated kitchens are] not a profit-driven endeavor.”
“Your bottom line is nutritional food for children,” Nelson said of operations like Grabowski’s.
Several school districts and food providers said they remain hopeful that Whitsons’ recent acquisition of The Abbey Group will yield positive results.
The Abbey Group has been a major partner of and contributor to Green Mountain Farm-to-School — an organization that works to connect farms to school food purchasers with a view to improving nutrition and sourcing — for over a decade.
“It’s been a very positive relationship,” said Catherine Cusack, Green Mountain Farm-to-School’s executive director. She said The Abbey Group has been “really open to trying to work with new producers, trying new crops.”
Dittrich, the Whitsons’ spokesperson, said the company is proud of its new affiliation with Green Mountain Farm-to-School and plans to expand its participation in coming years. Cusack confirmed that Whitsons had reached out about continuing the organizations’ work together.
“This partnership is grounded in a shared commitment to nourishing communities through wholesome, locally sourced meals and personalized service,” Dittrich said in a statement.
“I’m hopeful that we will continue the business as usual,” Cusack said. “I’m sure some things will change.”
Several school districts which work with The Abbey Group told VTDigger they have no plans to seek changes to their school meal contracts for the coming year. Dittrich said there will be no immediate changes to on-site staff, nor will there be cost adjustments for schools.
