“I believe in feeding kids,” says Debbie Trujillo. “I believe in being part of their lives.”
As the student nutrition services director for the Bernalillo Public Schools in Bernalillo, New Mexico, just north of Albuquerque, Trujillo is in charge of feeding breakfast and lunch every day to roughly 3,000 kids, from kindergarten through 12th grade, across eight separate schools. Bernalillo is a low-income area, so all students receive their meals free of charge through the USDA’s Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program.
“I might be the only person that’s putting food in that child’s life for breakfast and lunch,” Trujillo says. She takes this responsibility seriously: she and her team work hard every day to prepare nutritious, nourishing meals that the students will also enjoy. At lunchtime, there are always three to four options, most made from scratch using local ingredients, including meat, beans, and the red and green chilis that are beloved across New Mexico.
It’s not easy to cook this much food every day. Trujillo has a staff of 41 full-time employees, which, she admits, is not enough. Fortunately, she also has a not-so-secret weapon: several RATIONAL iCombi Pro ovens and iVario Pro tilt skillets.
Trujillo first encountered RATIONAL combi ovens at a school nutrition conference in 1998. “I just fell in love with the unit,” she remembers. The technology was easy to use, and the food came out perfectly every time.
“I just really wanted to bring it into all my schools so that we could start with this scratch cooking,” Trujillo says. “We could improve our quality, but also minimize time for my staff so that they have more time to be able to produce more food in a short time.”
With a grant from the New Mexico Department of Education, she was able to purchase eight ovens for the district. Last year, another grant financed an upgrade to bring an iCombi Pro and iVario Pro into every school.
Thanks to the iCombi and iVario’s programming functions, Trujillo is able to standardize recipes throughout the district and make sure that food is cooked to the correct temperature every time. Trujillo also appreciates that, in addition to roasting and baking, the iCombi Pro can also smoke and dehydrate. The iVario can sear, boil, and deep fry, cook soups, stews, and chilis overnight. This increases meal options considerably. Crucially, both devices can also cook two or three meals simultaneously, a true time-saver for Trujillo and her staff.
Even more important, as far as Trujillo is concerned, is that RATIONAL devices are safer for her staff to use. Both the iCombi and iVario run on electricity, which saves money, but it also means there are no open flames anywhere in the kitchen. The iVario also eliminates the need for heavy stockpots and pans, which means less wear and tear on the team members’ bodies. “I really feel that using the equipment correctly minimizes workman comp cases and it makes the staff happy,” Trujillo says. “They’re not working as hard as they used to.” Happy cooks, she believes, make happy food.
Another great time-saver in Trujillo’s understaffed kitchens is the iCombi Pro’s automated cleaning system, iCareSystem AutoDose. The machine cleans itself efficiently and effectively, and the units don’t require the staff to replace chemicals every day.
After more than 25 years of using RATIONAL products in her kitchens, Trujillo would recommend them to any school district. “Cooking in the iCombi and the iVario in our district really has allowed us to enhance the quality of food that we offer to our students on a daily basis,” she says. “It really provides us with the cooking technology that we need to be able to serve healthier scratch meals to our kids.”
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