New Year, New School Lunch Menu?! Why Maschio’s Replaced Aramark, What Maschio’s Now Offers, and What Students Think of Maschio’s

Anya Wang ’26

October 29, 2025

As the class of ‘26, ‘27, ‘28, and ‘29 walked through Ridge’s doors almost two months ago on September 4th, they entered a new school year with not just new schedules, teachers, and lanyards—but also a completely replaced, wholly rewritten school lunch menu. The 2025-2026 school year—and the ones to come—would be run on an entirely new fuel, for Bernards Township had changed their food service management company from Aramark to Maschio’s.

Ridge first notified students of this change on August 29th, in the first Friday Folder of the school year. “We are excited to welcome Maschio’s as the district’s new food service provider,” reads the note. A link to Maschio’s welcome letter was also included in the Folder [1].

According to Mr. Rollo, the Business Administrator/Board Secretary of the Business Office at the Board of Education, the district had multiple reasons for replacing Bernards Township’s food service management company. “All NJ public school districts that outsource food service operations are required to periodically solicit proposals from food services management companies,” Mr. Rollo explained to me in response to my email inquiry to the Board of Education. This process of soliciting proposals from food service management companies “has happened about every 5 years” at Bernards Township. Last year, “four different vendor submissions were evaluated according to six weighted measures,” which are as follows:

Proposed on-site management (Weight: 30%)
The Food Service program proposed by the FSMC (Weight: 25%)
The FSMC’s capability, record of performance and financial condition (Weight: 15%)
Guaranteed return of profit to the district (Weight: 15%)
Management fee (Weight: 8%)
Start-Up/Transition Plan (Weight: 7%).

**FSMC stands for Food Service Management Company.

Mr. Rollo informed me that Maschio’s scored “highest out of the 4 vendors,” according to the five-person selection committee. Specifically, “the committee scored Maschio’s in Guaranteed Return and Management Fee third and first place, respectively. Maschio’s finished highest in all other categories.” On the other hand, the committee scored Aramark “in Guaranteed Return and Management Fee first and second place, respectively. Aramark finished fourth out of of four in all other categories.”

Mr. Rollo further clarified that the change in food service providers was not influenced by the district’s ~$4.38 million budget deficit, the number currently reported by the District’s 2025-2026 Budget Presentation [2]. Instead, “Cafeteria operations are accounted for separately and the funds there do not commingle with the district’s operating budget. Profits from cafeterias cannot be used to fund teacher salaries or computer labs, etc. Those profits can generally only go into maintaining the kitchen equipment and cafeteria spaces.”

Mr. Rollo also noted other unsatisfactory aspects of Aramark’s performance, writing that the district felt that Aramark “failed to meet their guaranteed return [of profit],” that Aramark suffered from “staffing shortages,” and that “the sentiment of the committee was that the district could be better served by a provider who placed more emphasis on food quality and execution of operations.”

Maschio’s menu differs substantially from Aramark’s [3]. Under Aramark, four different lunch lines were available to students: the pizza line, the sandwich line, the hot food line, and the pasta line. Under Maschio’s, what used to be the pizza line now serves an array of paper-tray selections, such as tater tots, fries, chicken tenders, along with paninis. The hot food line now serves the special of the day, paninis, and salads. The old pasta line now primarily serves pizza and the secondary special of the day. The sandwich line, however, remains unchanged.

Wondering what my peers thought of the new school lunch, I created a Google Form survey where I asked for their opinions [4]. I received a total of 35 responses with respondents from all grade levels.

General opinions seem to be mixed: when asked to rate the new lunch on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being “I highly dislike it” and 5 being “I like it a lot!”, the most frequent response was a tie between a 2 and a 3, with the data assuming a bell-curve shape:

When asked to compare the previous menu with the current one, opinions also seemed mixed, although favored towards Aramark’s:

(Note: in this question, 1 was “I liked the previous school lunch a lot more” and 5 was “I like the current school lunch a lot more”.)

A common praise of the new school lunch that I heard from my peers was of the paninis, a daily offering from Maschio’s, especially the chicken pesto panini.

Aramark’s pasta line, however, is deeply missed. What is now the pizza line used to exclusively serve pasta: specifically, one or two kinds of pasta; white, pink, and marinara sauces; and chicken, sausages, and meatballs were offered, which students could choose from to create customized pasta bowl combinations. This was served every day, and was considered a reliable option that had a relatively short wait. While Maschio’s does occasionally offer a pasta option, it is not offered daily like Aramark’s pasta.

Another missed element of Aramark’s menu is its cultural diversity. Last year, when I interviewed Mr. Matamoros [5], our previous food service director, he told me that diversity was a hallmark of his menu. His menu included foods from all over the world—specials that I can remember include the Mediterranean chicken rice bowl, Indian curry, Tex-Mex nachos, Chinese rice bowls, Jamaican chicken and plantain bowls, and Japanese ramen. Mr. Matamoros also mentioned to me that if he were to stay for the 2025-2026 school year and beyond, he would have tried to include sushi in the lunch menu. While diversity is present in Maschio’s menu—options such as General Tso’s chicken, ramen, and nachos have been served—the level of diversity has noticeably decreased. On some days, sandwiches are the overwhelming option served in the cafeteria: along with the paninis and the sandwich line, the hot food line sometimes also serves some kind of sandwich.

“I also wish they could bring back some of the foods from the old school lunch company because I miss them. I love that they do foods from different cultures. It brings respect to their cultures,” writes a junior in my survey.

Vegetarian students also feel that Maschio’s does not offer enough daily vegetarian options. “I noticed that there are significantly less vegetarian options this year compared to last year,” writes Sahithi Gorthi, a fellow senior and our RDA STEM Editor. “I can’t buy the fries because they are placed in the same basket as the chicken tenders. As for sandwiches, allegedly there is a vegetarian pesto sandwich, however I definitely haven’t seen it; if there is, it’s hard to differentiate between the chicken pesto and the vegetarian pesto sandwiches. I’ve also not seen a cheese pizza, essentially limiting me to the one vegetarian special and any of the prepacked foods (e.g. muffins, donuts, etc. which are obviously not befitting of a proper lunch). ”

(A minor correction–I have occasionally seen cheese pizza in the cafeteria. Check out Sahithi’s article “The Plight of Vegetarians,” though! [6])

Students also voiced their frustrations about how the new layout to the lines affects wait times. “My only real issue with the new cafeteria lunch is the absolutely insane traffic in the hot lunch area due to the new layout!” writes another junior. “Ever since the chicken and fries got moved to the center, people have started making a new line in the center doorway and it is impossible to make it through without getting squished or without getting cut in line. You’re not getting out of there without a good 5-10 minutes if you’re an average law abiding student 😭 I used to buy everyday last year, but now I bring my own lunch most of the time, because buying just takes too much time out of my lunch period! They seriously need to give us more space in there, or separate some lines so the people going in and out aren’t all pushing against each other.”

Students wondered what teachers or lunch servers present during lunchtime could do to prevent line-cutting and the creation of a “third” line. Multiple students also contemplated whether lines could include more cashiers in order to reduce wait times. Long lines and the culture of line-cutting, however, are not independent to Maschio’s—they were a persistent problem while Aramark was here, too (I wrote a satire article about it last year [7]).

Students also hoped that Maschio’s menu could be more accessible to students—perhaps posted in the Daily Announcements or sent directly to student’s inboxes. (I must agree—I only found the link to the menu through the August 29th Friday Folder.)

When asked what providing food for our district has been like so far, our new food service director, Mr. Robert, told me that it has been “busy but rewarding.” Mr. Robert also told me that Maschio’s selects menu options based on “seasons for freshness, holidays and what events are happening within the school district.” For students with specific suggestions or concerns, Mr. Robert said they can “Absolutely!!” let him or one of the managers know directly (Mr. Robert’s email is [email protected]), and that the school will be holding a Food Advisory Committee meeting within the next month for both staff and students. The specific date of the FAC meeting is set by the principal, and any students who desire to attend must ask for permission.

On October 23rd, all students also received an email asking them to complete a survey regarding the school lunch [8].

When asked to leave a message for Ridge students, Mr. Robert said, “Have patience and enjoy your time as much as possible!”

Below, I’ve included a photo gallery of Maschio’s menu and food options: