For many students on campus, lunchtime is frequently an afterthought. Most boys don’t think about anything past the menu, but the process behind each lunch is way deeper than it seems.
For Senior Food Service Director Brennon Turner, one day of serving lunch comes with months of preparation beforehand. His job includes food budgeting, managing food operations and putting together customized meal plans.
Often, this work goes unnoticed by students and faculty. However, the Golden Leaf award seeks to distinguish members of SAGE who go above and beyond to ensure the nutrition of our school. This year, Turner was a finalist.
“The Distinguished Leadership Award is for highlighting people who demonstrate remarkable leadership and judgement, especially in complex situations, which requires effective communication, sound decision making and creative problem solving,” Turner said.
This is the second year that the Golden Leaf award will be given, which is an annual award that contains several different categories for numerous positions, including managers, team members, home office staff and regular employees. All entries are reviewed through an objective process, and anyone can nominate anybody.
“The Golden Leaf Awards is a chance to recognize the people who make SAGE exceptional. With more awards and more winners this year, there are even more opportunities to celebrate colleagues who’ve made a real impact,” Turner said.
SAGE is a food contract company that serves private schools and small universities. It covers a wide range of schools across the country and parts of Canada. Ordering the ingredients for each menu item takes weeks of preparation and collaboration with people inside and outside the school.
“For me, as a food service director, my day to day life is really about planning and preparation. We put together the menus well in advance by getting with the executive chef and getting with our food distributors. It’s about making sure we have the right ingredients for the menu we put together and making sure we maintain food safety standards,” Turner said.
The SAGE dining hall functions because of the hard work and dedication of people like Turner, who develops menus that meet the needs of everyone on campus.
“We maintain the highest standards of integrity throughout our company, from accounting to purchasing to marketing,” Turner said. “We never waver from our focus on serving great-tasting, wholesome food.”
The award ceremony took place on Wednesday, May 6, and while Turner did not win the award, he was still thankful for the opportunity to be recognized for his work.
“While I didn’t win this year, it was truly an honor to be nominated and named a finalist,” Turner said. “I also learned this is only the second year of the Golden Leaf Awards, which made the recognition especially meaningful.”
Turner plans to continue to lead SAGE this year and beyond, continuing to help our community during lunch time.
“I’m just happy to be nominated… somebody thought that I’m doing my job at a high level and they wanted to recognize me for that,” Turner said.
