School Lunches - Organic Life Foods - Not Really Nut Free

Organic Life Foods is a provider of catering and school lunch program meals.  They advertise:
"ALL OrganicLife FACILITIES ARE NUT- FREE" which is not technically true, if you are looking to safeguard against cross-contamination.  They have hundreds of suppliers and told me that each year the number of their suppliers who disclose  potential cross-contamination of the stuff they sell to OrganicLife reduces.  They do not include peanut or tree-nuts in their recipes, but they definitely have ingredients that are themselves cross-contaminated.

Specifically, they use Red Hen Bakeries Bread in some main dishes, and they use leftover Red Hen Bread to make croutons and bread crumbs.  I spoke to the owner of Red Hen Bakeries who told me that, "All product made in Red Hen Bakeries must be considered to risk cross-contamination by tree nuts.  Even though Organic Life buys breads that do not have nuts as ingredients, all of the bread that OrganicLife uses from Red Hen Bakeries could be cross-contaminated by tree nuts."  OrganicLife salad bars in schools include croutons that are not usually separated from the rest of the items, meaning that crumbs could fall into the other "safe" salad bar items.  Salad bar servers often use serving utensils that dip into croutons and then into other "safe" salad bar items.  And OrganicLife puts breadcrumbs made from Red Hen Bakeries bread on top of at least the Mac & Cheese.  In addition, OrganicLife cannot speak to the nut-safety of the piece chocolate that they use in their foods (primarily desserts).  The principals (CEO and COO) at OrganicLife told me that they cannot assure their ingredients are free of peanut and tree-nut cross-contamination. 

Our school uses OrganicLife in large part due to their nut-free representation, even though we know they may not truly be a nut-free facility.  So, we take some ADDITIONAL steps to reduce risk of exposure, though we can't eliminate the risk.  We segregate the croutons, bread and desserts.  We ask to omit Red Hen Bread, breadcrumbs and croutons.  I am guessing that most schools do not understand this situation.  Thank goodness that ours does!