By being a member of the Victorian School Canteen Association, you will gain support, advice and information to help you to operate your canteen to meet your school's needs. If you are not already a VSCA member, 2009 is a great time to join! You will become part of a supportive and caring network of hundreds of school canteen people around Victoria. Click here to find out more or to join online.

An ideal time to do this is at the beginning of a new school year or at the start of a new school term. After the long summer break, a totally new menu is available and before long (usually in less than one school term), the new menu is well established and it seems it has been this way forever. New students just accept this without question, while the oldest students who may be the most entrenched have moved on and left the school.

Some schools, especially at primary level, find that major menu changes can be made most effectively by closing the canteen for a period of time (eg. for one term). This is especially easy if the closure is due to renovations being carried out at the same time.

A complete "makeover" of your canteen is a great way to launch a new menu. You can create a new "image" for your foodservice by saying goodbye to a tired old junky canteen.

Rename your facility - calling it a "café" may suit your new menu better than the old style "canteen". Ask your students or have a student competition to find a new name.

Purchase new VSCA aprons for your staff uniform - encourage your paid and voluntary staff to look and feel good and to be hygienic while at work. Click here to see VSCA Merchandise for School Canteens

Install new equipment if needed to help you with your new menu. Did you know you can buy basic items from VSCA like cutting boards (a choice of 3 different sizes in white, blue, brown, green, red or yellow); cutting board racks (to store your boards and to allow them to air dry); and knives (in every size and shape to suit every purpose). Click here to see details of the range available.

Use VSCA printed lunch order bags to standardise lunch ordering and streamline your canteen operations. These also can raise funds and add to canteen profits. Like to know more and to see the bags for yourself? Click here

Put up bright new posters, signs and appetising pictures of foods. You can download free clip art from the internet - be sure to search for "food". Click here to access free Microsoft Office Clip Art.

A simple coat of paint can make an amazing difference to your canteen. If you have a wall nearby, you may even be able to have students design and paint a canteen mural.

Develop a logo or symbol for your new foodservice (clever students or parents may be able to help). Use your logo on all information, signage, menus, roster notices, thank you notes, newsletter items etc.

Appoint yourself as "chef", "food manager" or "nutrition manager" rather than "canteen manager" or "manageress" - especially if the food you are producing rivals that of a café or restaurant.

Even employ new staff if needed! Employing extra staff - if they are the right people for the job - does not necessarily mean reduced profits. One secondary school reported to VSCA that, for 14 weeks in late 2008, they trialled employing an extra part time canteen assistant to prepare healthier "home made" items in their canteen. The profit results? Increased profits - even after deducting the extra wage costs including workcover insurance and superannuation. Contact VSCA if you'd like to know more!

Over a period of time, reduce the range of confectionery items available - your canteen does not have to stock a full range of all the items in the universe.

Deplete stocks. Practice running out of less desirable items so that students are "forced" to consider what else is available and to purchase something else instead. This introduces and gets customers used to the concept of change.

When items are sold out, do not reorder. "Sorry - all gone! Like to try something else?"

"Disappear" items off the counter for a day or two - or even longer!

Have "lolly free" days as a trial or a practice to prove to yourself and your students that we all can survive without these items - the world will not grind to a halt without them being available all the time! This can also be a chance to test preparing and serving your new menu ideas and how you can best incorporate these into your daily operations. If you want to proceed cautiously, start off with occasional lolly free days. Be sure to make these "special" and fun. Always remember that eating - and purchasing - snacks or lunch items from the school canteen is a fun thing to do.

Highlight the positives (the "specialness" and the fun parts), rather than the negatives (no lollies and the removal of menu items)! Increase the frequency of these special days - try lolly free days once a week ("Munchie Mondays", "Tasty Tuesdays", "Wellness" or "Wacky " or "Wicked Wednesdays", "Thrifty Thursdays", "Fruity" or "Fantastic" or "Fun Fridays", etc), or even more often, before making the complete change.

Try changing your canteen counter and layout. Notice what a difference it makes if you move less desirable items out of view. Place into prime positions the fresh items and the healthier "green" choices you want to promote and sell.

Find other alternatives to sell. Change your attitude to what might be considered a "treat". Look for items to sell from the different food groups - breads and cereals, dairy and dairy alternatives, meat and meat alternatives, fruits and vegetables.

Look for ready made "green" items in VSCA's Online Buying Guide. Visit all the different sections (click on the following underlined words for a direct link): Breads & Cereals; Fillings & Toppings; Fruits & Vegetables; Snacks.

Be creative and think outside the square! You can serve "green" breakfast cereals at other times than breakfast - try them without milk as a snack for morning recess! Have you tried crunching on a snack of frozen berries? Delicious on a hot summer's day!

Feeling adventurous? Visit websites with healthy food ideas and recipes. Here are some good starts:

• Go for your life: click here for hundreds of healthy recipes
• Go for your life Healthy Canteen Kit: click here for food ideas for home and school
• Fresh for kids: click here for Canteen Fresh newsletters full of great ideas for preparing and serving fruit and vegetables
• Better Health Channel: click here for hundreds of recipes
• Dairy Australia: click here for Kids Good Health Recipe Book produced in conjunction with Nutrition Australia
• Kids Health (USA site): click here for recipes for kids
• Do you know of other websites with healthy food recipes and ideas? Please let us know so we can share them with other schools.

Think about your own attitude to "treats" and to the changes you are making. Children and young people are very open to suggestion (both positive and negative) and will pick up your signals and your attitude. If you're positive about the changes and enthusiastic about the healthier products you're promoting, your enthusiasm will be catching.

Prepare items so they are easy to serve and to eat. In term one, you can use all the beautiful fresh fruit and vegetables that are in season - this is when they are cheapest, most nutritious and best value for money. They are so colourful that you can make eye catching displays.

Cut fruit and vegetables are easier to eat for everyone than whole pieces, and even more so for students with braces or wobbly teeth!

You can calculate one selling price for all of your fresh fruit and veges and prepare and serve accordingly - 10 cherries or half an orange or a slice of pineapple or half a banana or 5 strawberries or 6 snow peas or 1 dutch carrot.

Vary your selling price according to the cost price of your fresh produce.

Apple slinkies (prepared with the skin on) are a fun way to serve apples - click here to find out more.

Fresh fruit salad and frozen fresh fruit salad can be popular.

Jellied fruit, fruit and custard, fruit and yoghurt and vege pieces with dips are other serving ideas that appeal and do not take much time or effort to prepare.

Make sure these healthy items are on view at serving time - right where your customers can see them and will start to drool. Very few will ask for items that are hidden away out of sight in your frig or freezer! (That's a good place for items you wish to phase out!)

You can promote your healthier "green" items through your pricing structure. INCREASE the prices of your less desirable "amber" items so you can REDUCE the prices of your "green" menu items, and still make a profit.

How will you announce the changes? Will you do it quietly or will you broadcast your changes to the world? What will you say to your students? "No, you can't have that" or "No, we are not allowed to sell that any more" or "No, that is banned"? Or will you say "We don't have that any more, but have you seen this - it is new and it is only half the price" or "Would you like a taste of this - lots of other kids have bought one and then come back for two more?"

You - the person in charge and the person meeting the students at the counter - are the most important person of all. You can make these changes a success by being positive. Or you can make it all a disaster and a dog's dinner by being negative and cranky.

Beg, borrow or steal ideas from other schools - there is no need to reinvent the wheel! VSCA's "Tuckshop Treasures" collection of school menus and other information is available to order for just $16.50 (including GST and postage/handling). Click here for more information and an order form.