Somma Food Group has launched a partnership with the New York City Public School System in offering Chickentopiatm Drumstix in over 1,700 of their schools.
First served in December, Chickentopiatm Drumstix are served to New York City's approximately 1.1 million students during lunch.
New York City's Department of Education is a founding member of the Urban School Food Alliance (The Alliance), a coalition of six large urban school districts. In 2014, The Alliance committed to convert all chicken products served to students to chicken sourced from humanely treated chickens raised with zero antibiotics of any kind and a vegetarian diet free of any animal by-products.
"We applaud New York City and The Alliance for choosing food that leaves no room for interpretation, and we are excited to partner with SchoolFood to bring 'never, ever' chicken to kids, teachers and staff in the area," said Michael Turley, co-founder and managing director of Somma Food Group. "Today, there are many attempts to shift the conversation about antibiotics in our food with terms such as 'non-human,' 'human analogous' or 'judicious.' Chickentopiatm aims to give customers exactly what they want - the highest quality chicken that is 100% vegetable fed and never, ever given antibiotics."
The culinary team at New York's SchoolFood created two custom sauces for the menu to be featured on the drumstick - Sabrosa and BBQ. They will be featuring both of those sauces this week. According to Somma officials this particular drumstick has enough flavor to stand on its own but is balanced enough to carry a wide variety of sauces.
"We are excited to become the first supplier to serve 100% antibiotic free chicken to New York City schools. While students may only see it as great tasting chicken, their parents realize that the administration of New York City Schools cares deeply about the health and wellbeing of their children," said Gary Hamm, vice president of marketing of Somma Food Group. "We are grateful to the team at SchoolFood for placing their trust in Somma Food Group to meet their menu needs."