Chicken patties, Caesar salad, and curly fries. On any given day the Hackley cafeteria is filled with students eating food prepared by Flik, the food service company that has been providing meals to the Hackley community for the past 16 years.

Flik specializes in providing food services to private and independent schools across the country. According to Flik’s website, each school gets customized, innovative and diverse menus based on the school’s particular needs and the seasonal local ingredients found in the area.

Every month the Flik Management team at Hackley, composed of the Executive Chef, Sous Chef and Director of Dining Services, creates a specific monthly menu designed around Hackley requests, feedback on previous meals and availability of fresh local produce. This ensures that the most popular Hackley lunches are served every month.

Seventeen Flik employees arrive at the Hilltop at 6 a.m. and start preparing fresh food using scratch cooking methods in both the Upper School and Lower School dining rooms. After a long 14-hour day filled with creating customized meals, colorful salad bar and soups made from scratch, the employees descend from the Hill and return the next morning to once again create the best meals possible for Hackley students and faculty.

According to a Dial survey, which asked students to rate Flik’s food on a scale from one to five (one being the worst, and five being the best), 39 percent of students answered with a three and another 38 percent rated the food either a four or a five. Further, when asked to rank Flik’s variety of food, 42 percent of students answered with a four.

Junior Wenkai Qin thinks that there is better food served at breakfast and dinner compared to lunch, “but I think that is more of a function of how many people they have to serve during the lunch meal. Flik only has a certain amount of time to prepare food for the whole school, so it can’t be easy to make it top-notch every day.”

According to Marco Morales, Senior Director of Dining Services, Flik “serves approximately 1,500 meals each day at Hackley.” When asked about his reaction to the poll results, Mr. Morales commented, “Every day is a challenge and we are only as good as our last meal. This is why we strive to make sure that each and every meal is as delicious as possible.”

Quality control is also important to Flik. The Flik Management team is certified every three years by the ServSafe Association, which is a Board of Health Mandate. In addition, Mr. Morales says “we have daily pre-service meetings with our staff to review menus, sanitation policies and proper food handling. We also have monthly training meetings with our staff and allergy food training two times per school year.”

To ensure that students are getting a balanced diet, Mr. Morales says that Flik “makes sure that each station including the hot line, salad bar and deli bar has options that include protein, vegetables and carbohydrates.”

Wenkai commented, “Flik keeps the salad and sandwich bar in really good shape. But I would say that the bread is sometimes stale. Maybe they can put a cover over the bread to keep if fresh.”

When asked about changes in the appetite of Hackley students over the last few years, Mr. Morales commented, “there has definitely been a shift towards more vegetarian and vegan options. We are trying new items such as tempeh, seitan and more tofu dishes.”

Junior Aley Longo said, “Flik does a really good job with vegetarian options. I really like the edamame, beans, whole grain salads, pasta and vegetables that are offered.”

Flik is also committed to the humane care of farm animals and so they offer only Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) certified cage-free shell eggs in all of their schools. Further, Flik only serves chicken that has been restricted in its use of antibiotics as a growth additive in feed.

Additionally, Flik serves only fresh cow’s milk that is certified free of artificial growth hormones. They are  committed to protecting the global fish supply and so they choose seafood that does not threaten the fish population or the ocean ecosystem.

Along with Flik, Hackley students are emphasising organic and fresh foods as well. Freshman Sophie Slutsky said, “I try to eat as much organic and hormone free food as possible and I am finding that there are more of these options offered this year at lunch. It’s great that Hackley and Flik are working together to make sure that students always have healthy choices.”