How Seth Salzman Of Smart Mouth Foods Is Helping To Address The Growing Challenge Of Food Insecurity
An Interview With Martita Mestey
…Lead with Love: No matter what business you are in, there’s always room to treat those that you interact with love…
In many parts of the United States, there is a crisis of people having limited reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. As prices rise, this problem will likely become more acute. How can this problem be solved? Who are the leaders helping to address this crisis?
In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who are helping to address the increasing problem of food insecurity who can share the initiatives they are leading to address and solve this problem.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Seth Salzman.
Seth Salzman is the President of Smart Mouth Foods, which is an organization committed to improving school lunch programs across the nation. The company focuses on providing restaurant-quality pan pizzas that meet the USDA nutrition standards, while also remaining a more affordable option for schools. Smart Mouth Foods currently partners with over 600 schools across 15 states, with Salzman leading a dedicated team whose mission is to feed more children through its partnerships with schools and philanthropic efforts.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I’ve spent my life in food service, surrounded by food and nutrition. When I was in middle school, my mother decided to go back to school to earn her bachelor’s degree in nutrition and master’s in education. She had previously stayed at home to raise my brother and I. After her graduation, she became a middle school Home Economics Teacher, a role that she stayed in for 25 years before retiring. While working days at a local middle school and going to college at night, my father and I took on the role of meal prep at home, so I learned how to cook all kinds of cuisines and fell in love with it! I can still remember the first meal I made by myself for my family — Beef Stroganoff (I made a big mess in the kitchen)!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
My first management job out of college was at a casual dining steakhouse chain located in downtown Atlanta. Like so many big cities, Atlanta has a large homeless population, and as the new guy I was regularly the closing manager. When leaving the restaurant at midnight or later, I would come across a few hungry people asking for food or money. Our restaurant always had leftover food at the end of the night that would unfortunately go into the trash. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much good we could do by sharing with those who were hungry and in need. Hence, I would regularly put together care packages and hand them out to those in need after I had closed the restaurant.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
The true tipping point is when I met my franchisor partners and accepted the opportunity to lead the operations of a startup called Moe’s Southwest Grill. The lesson learned here is to never say no to an introduction. I initially turned down the intro/meeting but was pushed to just go have a “lunch and meet”. It turned out that this meeting would change the course of my entrepreneurial career!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
At 24 years old, I was a young General Manager working for Bertucci’s Brick Oven Pizzeria in Baltimore. About a year into my tenure, the company was sold to another restaurant group. I thought I was a pretty good manager and that I knew what I was doing…until I met our new District Manager Jim Kuun. Jim taught me so much! He had incredible attention to detail, but more than anything he took the time to teach me. I always felt comfortable asking him questions. He was an incredible leader, but he was also firm and held us accountable with no excuses. Jim really showed me how a leader makes time to help their team to grow and succeed.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Servant Leadership — As a leader, you are only as good as your team. I have focused on surrounding myself with great people and as much as possible, people that are better than I could possibly be at that role. My job is then to eliminate all obstacles that get in their way, give them the tools they need, and then support them to the best of my ability to help them succeed and grow. A well-oiled machine can still break down if there is just one tiny little part that breaks, your job as a leader is to watch over all those parts.
Empathy — Life can be hard! Work can be challenging, and finding a balance between work and family is tough. I’ve learned to listen to what my teams are going through. This helps me to create a flexible culture that allows people to be where they need to be, when they need to be there. I have seen my employees thrive, and they love where they work.
Accountability — Accountability is not a bad word nor is it a negative word. Holding people accountable is one of the best things a leader can do for them. Good people want to be held accountable; told when they are not meeting expectations and when they are exceeding expectations too! You can’t get better if you don’t know where your opportunities for improvement are.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Mahatma Gandhi
I’ve always felt that how I treated others and finding ways to take care of those around me has led to my greatest fulfillment and joy. If you start with thinking about how your actions can benefit others, you tend to make the best decision.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Can you describe to our readers how your work is helping to address the challenge of food insecurity?
Nearly one in five children in America live in households without consistent access to adequate food. Sometimes their only meal(s) come from school. This is why it’s so important to be able to provide a nutritious breakfast and/or lunch.
What we do is simply stated in our company Mission Statement — Feed More Kids. In 2001, Bull’s Eye Brands, Inc launched its Smart Mouth® Foods program that features restaurant quality, personal pan pizzas exclusively for schools. Smart Mouth pizza has met USDA’s school nutrition standards for 23 years, while making school lunch programs more profitable by increasing student dining frequency in the cafeteria.
Balanced nutrition throughout the day contributes to student success in and out of the classroom. New research shows children are getting their healthiest meals at school. Studies have demonstrated that school meal programs play an important role in supporting obesity prevention, overall student health and academic achievement by improving children’s diets and combatting hunger. According to No Kid Hungry, on average, students who eat school breakfast have been shown to achieve 17.5% higher scores on standardized math tests and attend 1.5 more days of school per year.
School meal programs have always operated on extremely tight budgets. However, persistently high food and labor costs, ongoing procurement challenges and the end of pandemic-era financial assistance have dramatically increased financial pressures. Our innovative, turn-key program provides all equipment at no upfront cost and was designed to meet the needs of a broad range of socio-economic communities. Another advantage for the school is that we can launch the program within 30–60 days in districts where we have existing distribution centers. They can be up and running more quickly to provide nutritious pizza to their students.
The children of this country have amazing opportunities ahead of them, but it starts with a healthy meal so that they can focus on their education. We are proud to partner with over 600 schools in 15 states.
Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?
My team and I wake up every day driven by our mission. What makes me most proud is knowing that every time we go into a new school, we are feeding more kids. In some cases, those are kids that were bringing lunch from home and that’s great, but often it’s the kids that weren’t eating at all and that is who we want to help the most. Our program helps to remove the stigma that a child who qualifies for a free or reduced lunch comes from a poor family. Many students bear a sense of shame and will either forgo lunch or choose not to dine in the cafeteria. Our pizza attracts every socio-economic background which makes it difficult to decipher whether you’re a child on a free/reduced plan or not. We’ve had several schools post-launch tell us how happy they are to see so many new faces.
On top of that, with our mission to Feed More Kids®, Smart Mouth believes that no child should go hungry and has worked alongside its nonprofit partners to distribute more than 7 million meals to kids in need. For every 10 meals that we sell to our school customers, we donate a meal to feed a hungry child both domestically and abroad.
In your opinion, what should other business and civic leaders do to further address these problems? Can you please share a few things that can be done to further address the problem of food insecurity?
I truly believe that Universal Free should be a nationwide initiative. During the pandemic, every kid ate for free at every public school in the country. No child had a reason to go without breakfast or lunch thanks to that program. Unfortunately, that program expired at the start of last school year, and now 9 states have fought to continue it: California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico and Vermont. I believe that business and civic leaders should do everything they can to make sure all kids can get the meals they need and the education they deserve. This can be in the form of creating education and awareness in the community, fundraising, speaking with their local and federal government representatives, or connecting with vendors for equipment and supply donations.
Are there other leaders or organizations who have done good work to address the challenge of food scarcity? Can you tell us what they have done? What specifically impresses you about their work? Perhaps we can reach out to them to include them in this series.
I admire the School Nutrition Association, which is a non-profit organization that supports school nutrition professionals and aims to improve the quality and accessibility of school meals. As a leader of school nutrition since 1946, they are a great advocate for the K-12 food service industry. Their vision is to ensure all students have access to nutritious meals at school to support their health and well-being, and their focus areas include developing and publishing research and reports on school nutrition trends and topics.
There are thousands of food service directors, tens of thousands of cafeteria managers and hundreds of thousands of cafeteria staff who spend their lives feeding kids, showing their love through cooking and serving.
I also admire the Boyce Ansley School in Atlanta, a small tuition-free private school for children that are or have experienced homelessness. Director Ray James and his team are making a difference in the lives of those children, including serving a great breakfast and lunch for them every day.
There is also the Multi-Agency Alliance for Children (MAAC). They are an amazing organization that helps support and improve the outcomes for youth in foster care. I am so inspired by their work and all that they do to help young people who are or have been in foster care.
If you had the power to influence legislation, are there laws that you would like to see introduced that might help you in your work?
I would push for Universal Free and take away the stigma. 2 million less meals were served at school cafeterias last year vs. the year before because of the end of Universal Free. Among other things that other great organizations around the country are focused on, we can be a part of breaking the cycle of poverty by helping kids to get the education they so badly need and deserve.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
- Always find ways to exceed your customers’ expectations: Business is all about making fans out of your customers. If you exceed your customers’ expectations, you will make fans out of them and they will be your best advertising.
- Take care of your customer: Whether it’s righting a wrong or simply remembering a regular’s name and order, it is important to prioritize them.
- Lead with Love: No matter what business you are in, there’s always room to treat those that you interact with love. Depending on the school, we have seen some lunch ladies that were disrespected and underestimated. It’s unbelievable to us because they work so hard to keep our kids fed with care.
- Be passionate about your work: If you can find something that makes you feel like you are making the world a better place, it will never (or rarely) feel like work. I’m very fortunate that I get to work with dedicated and passionate people each day who want to feed more kids.
- Prioritize supporting your team and recognizing accomplishments: The more effort you put into helping your team grow and succeed, the more YOU will be humbled. Also, take the time to recognize the good things you’ve accomplished.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Be a foster parent! If you can’t be a foster parent, be a big brother or sister. If you can’t be a big brother or sister, support organizations that support them. There is no reason a child shouldn’t have a loving home.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Billy Joel — Growing up on Long Island he’s a hometown hero and I’ve always loved his music.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can visit Smart Mouth Food’s website, www.smartmouthfoods.com, to learn more about our work.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.
How Seth Salzman Of Smart Mouth Foods Is Helping To Address The Growing Challenge Of Food… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.