ARLINGTON, VA – Last week, USA Rice hosted a successful K-12 training webinar for school nutrition professionals, “USA Rice: The Perfect Partner for Healthy School Meals,” that explored how U.S.-grown rice can be used to enhance K-12 school menus with its affordability, nutritional value, and adaptability all while maintaining the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) school nutrition standards.
The 60-minute accredited webinar had more than 335 registered attendees and received an average audience interest rating of 85 percent, significantly higher than the industry average rating of 50-60 percent. Participants were also very receptive to the information and cooking demonstrations presented, scoring the webinar as a 4.3/5 in the post-session feedback survey.
Attendees reported that the session increased their overall skill and knowledge on K-12 rice usage, takeaways were realistic and applicable, and that they would begin incorporating what was learned during the session immediately.
The live cooking demonstrations of Jambalaya and Peanut Butter & Jelly Rice Pudding by Healthy School Recipes Chef Samantha Cowens-Gasbarro also received significant praise in the post-session responses.
“I always heard that you shouldn't touch the rice while it was cooking,” one participant reported. “I never knew why until today. Great bit of information.”
Several other participants left feedback extolling the many uses of rice in school meal planning, especially the creative ways to incorporate rice in K-12 breakfast meals.
The webinar also provided each registered attendee with a custom USA Rice toolkit featuring information on the versatility of rice, research-backed health benefits rice adds to a diet, and links to USA Rice K-12 school resources.
Go
here to download a recording of the webinar.