Pine Trail Elementary participates in Volusia County Schools, School Way Café Pizza Wars

ORMOND BEACH — When it comes to choosing a favorite pizza, elementary school students have strong opinions and innovative ideas.

Jacob Beatty, 11, said he favors deep-dish pizza, especially if it’s loaded with pepperoni. And his Pine Trail Elementary School classmate, Roman Butera, said his favorite slice comes from a cheese-less, New York-style pizza topped with ranch and olives.

“It’s a bit weird,” the 10-year-old admitted, regarding the lack of cheese. “But it still has the olives on it, so it’s the perfect, ideal pizza.”

Beatty and Butera were two of about 1,300 students who participated in Volusia County Schools’ Pizza Wars hosted by School Way Café.

They taste-tested various cheese and pepperoni pizzas March 15 to determine what would be included on district lunch menus next school year.

While none of the options were deep-dish or topped with olives, the boys were still excited to participate in the fun.

According to Beatty, there is a lot to consider when picking a delicious pizza, and taste-testing is a critical part to determining the best possible option.

“It’s usually the appearance and the taste,” he said. “It could sometimes look horrible but taste amazing or look amazing but taste horrible.”

About Volusia County Schools’ Pizza Wars

Earlier this month, elementary, middle and high school students from 14 schools districtwide taste-tested three types of cheese pizza and three types of pepperoni pizza.

The highest scoring cheese pizza and the highest scoring pepperoni pizza — both requiring an 80% or higher student rating — will be included on district cafeteria menus next school year.

After taking two bites per slice with a sip of water in between, students scored each pizza’s appearance, taste, texture, and smell on a 3-point grading scale: a green smiley face if they loved it, a yellow frowny face if they thought it was OK, and a red sad face if they didn’t like it.

“We have three different manufacturers, and we’re doing the cheese and pepperoni,” said Valerie Hansen, the district’s assistant director of School Way Café. “And so if one manufacturer wins cheese, then we’ll serve that manufacturer for cheese, but then if a different one wins pepperoni, then we’ll serve that pepperoni.”

According to Elizabeth Spicer, the School Way Café manager for Pine Trail Elementary, the menu hasn’t been updated recently, so it’s time for a change.

“Pizza is our number one seller on the menu,” she said. “We wanted to get the students’ input and let them choose which one they like most.”

Autumn Garrison-House, Volusia’s systems operations coordinator for School Way Café, attended multiple Pizza War assemblies this month. She said that students have been enthusiastic at every grade level and at every school.

“About five years ago, we had a very downsized version of this when we changed our pizza, so this year, we decided to take it on a grander scale. Our students are our customers,” Garrison-House said. “They get used to something. There’s different things out there on the market, so we want to see what they want and give them what they want.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Volusia County students taste-test pizzas to determine new lunch menu