Freezing food is nature's pause button, according to the frozen food lobby, so there's no need worry about the safety of frozen pizza being served to kids in schools. Unless, of course, that pizza grows some weird green spots—as was the case with slices recently served to New York City school kids, resulting in pizza being taken off city school lunch menus. That is probably cause for concern.
The city schools' frozen pizza problem was first reported by City Limits, who noted that the Department of Education sent thousands of boxes of Red Baron frozen pizza slices back to their distributor in May after finding mold on the pizza. But in August, the DOE ordered pizza from the same batch as the one they had sent back. Then last week, staff at Manhattan school Urban Assembly said there was mold in the slices they were supposed to serve.
Red Baron manufacturer Schwan Food Company told City Limits that the green substance on the pizza was "discoloration" and not mold, but they recalled the slices shipped to the city anyway. A source told the News that the pizza slices with muck on them were found by Urban Assembly staff on September 9th, and that they thought all of the pizza sent back in May should have been destroyed.
Whether the green muck was mold or not, it would appear Schwan and Urban Assembly have their work cut out for them when it comes to regaining the trust of their students. "I’m not surprised because the food they give us sucks . . . I am never going to eat the pizza here," authentic teen and Urban Academy junior Antonio Maceda told the Post.
