This year, Wellesley Public Schools (WPS) changed lunch providers, making the switch from Whitsons Culinary Group to Chartwells School Dining Services. As a public school district that contracts its own food services, WPS is required to invite vendors to be its new food provider every five years, inviting vendors to submit a proposal. 

“We put out a wide net and see if anybody's interested in running our food service program,” said Cindy Mahr, Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations. “We then invited the  people who were interested [and] gave them a tour of our district. Those that wanted to do business with Wellesley chose to submit a bid.”

The two companies that submitted bids were Whitsons, the previous food provider, and Chartwells. 

After companies submit a bid, the next step in the process is the comparative proposal in which the companies were evaluated in two phases: the Non-Price Proposal stage and the Price Proposal Stage. 

During the Non-Price Proposal stage, the companies were assessed by a Request for Proposal (RFP) committee comprised of members of the school committee, principals of the middle and high school, and other administrators within the school district. This comparative evaluation was based on multiple different criteria set by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) , including proposed menus, financial stability, student debt management, an interview, and more. 

However, the district also had other specifications in mind when selecting a new food provider. 

“There were other criteria that we felt were really important to the district,” said Mahr. “We, as a community, [feel] strongly about sustainability, and therefore, we asked that the next vendor focus on limiting plastics and non-compostable material.” 

Both companies were given ratings with the lowest possible grade on the scale being “unacceptable” and the highest being “highly advantageous”. Only those with a rating of “highly advantageous” are able to move on to the Price Proposal stage. 

Whitsons was given an overall rating of “advantageous” and Chartwells was given an overall rating of “highly advantageous”, making it the new food provider for the high school, as Whitsons was unable to move on to the Price Proposal stage.

“Chartwells demonstrated a greater alliance to what our goals were. Our goals were having menu items that demonstrated nutritious cooking from scratch, not prepackaged, and their menu showed that,” said Mahr. “They met, to a greater degree, all of our requirements, which is why they ended up winning the bid.”

The RFP committee also wanted to prioritize student enjoyment and variety among menu items. 

“They had a lot of opportunity for feedback from students, from parents, and we felt that was really something that was critical to the health and sustainability of a really high-quality program,” said Mahr. 

The next challenge, after Chartwells was named the food provider for the next five years, was to begin making the switch from Whitsons to Chartwells at all ten schools in the district. 

“The first thing we did was make sure that Chartwells had a staff that we could start in the fall for school. That was the first order of business,” said Sarah Butler, Director of Finance and Business Operations. 

Many cafeteria staff who had worked under Whitsons returned for the 2025-2026 school year despite the switch to Chartwells, as they wanted to remain within the district. 

After ensuring that there were cafeteria staff for the upcoming school year, the next task was making the transition from Whitsons to Chartwells official. This included changing signage, hiring and training a new management group to run the program on a district level, and building up food and material inventory.

Now that the school year has begun, Chartwells is expected to begin implementing systems to obtain feedback from students and parents. 

“The challenge is understanding what you all like to eat and making sure that meals are nutritious and exciting, and really meet [your] needs in a fresher way,” said Mahr, speaking directly to students.

There are multiple ways Chartwells will survey students. The primary manner will be through the Student Engagement and Sustainability Coordinator, a new position that came with the Chartwells as the new food provider. This position works with students, putting out samples and getting feedback from students at all grade levels. 

Chartwells has yet to formally collect feedback but students have already started to form their own impressions on the changes to their cafeteria and lunches.

Many feel mixed about the new developments — especially the hot meals.

“I believe that the hot meals need more variety because all we’ve eaten is pasta and the portions are extremely minuscule compared to the old catering company, yet their supply runs scarce before the lunch block is even over,” said Laylah Powell ’27.

“The hot meals are edible, but more effort could be used,” said Greg Topetzes ’26. “The pizza and salads have improved so much from last year, and I also love how they have condiment pump dispensers—it’s so much better than those little packets we used to have.”

Others praised the variety of options they were able to choose from.

Kate Fallon ‘29 said, “I feel like they serve a lot more different kinds of food.”

“I enjoy how we’re still provided with a lot of options for lunch, for example, if the hot meals aren’t something I want to have, I can always have the sandwiches or the pizza. Although I still prefer how more seasoned and unique the hot meals and pizzas were last year,” said Emem Akpan ’28.

Ultimately, Chartwells remains open to change and student feedback. Students can expect further changes over the next five years.