Next Up is NxtGen Network's podcast for the food industry: real conversations with the people actually building school nutrition and foodservice, not just the ones giving keynotes. Industry leaders and rising voices get into the actual career stories, the wins, the setbacks, and the innovation reshaping K-12 foodservice from the inside. If you work in food and want to hear from people who've actually done it, this is your show. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.
Most districts that serve pork treat it as a limited-time offer or a once-a-month special. LaChell Miller, MS, RDN, CC, the Senior Manager National Nutrition Programs at the National Pork Board, and registered dietitian; not to mention a certified Culinarian building the National Pork Board's K-12 work, wants it on the line weekly, at breakfast and at lunch.
In partnership with the National Pork Board.
IN THIS EPISODE:- How pork on entitlement compares with other proteins on cost (her figures, with a price gap she calls nearly double)- The pork items you can order with entitlement dollars: pulled pork, meatballs, rib patties, sausage patties, ham and picnic pork- What to do if your district has no kitchen, from heat-and-serve products to speed-scratch recipes with five ingredients or fewer
Suggested Links:- Pork & Partners (https://www.pork.org/porkandpartners/) - Pork & Partners: Human Nutrition Research (https://www.pork.org/porkandpartners/nutrition-research/)- Pork on the Plate K–12 Recipe Book (https://pork.org/porkandpartners/resources/pork-on-the-plate-k-12-recipe-book/ ) - Speed Scratch Recipes - National Pork Board (https://pork.org/porkandpartners/resources/pork-on-the-menu-k-12/) - Pork Nutrition Information (https://www.pork.org/nutrition/pork-nutrition/ - Pork Cares: https://www.porkcares.org/): - Drive Efficiency of your Entitlement Dollars (https://pork.org/porkandpartners/resources/drive-efficiency-of-your-entitlement-dollars-with-pork-on-the-menu/)
CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST:- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TasteWhatPorkCanDo/- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/porkandpartners?stkn=andqZWp2dGUwOTJy- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/nationalporkboard- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lachellmiller/- Website: https://pork.org/
CONNECT WITH OUR HOST: - Instagram (Marlon Gordon): https://www.instagram.com/nxtgenmarlon/- LinkedIn (Marlon Gordon): https://www.linkedin.com/in/marlon-gordon/- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-up-podcast/id1598968019- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ex3Oj7aodeUe48EJGy9DzPRODUCED BY NXTGEN NETWORK- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtgen_network/- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1E8s9SrHUj/- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nxtgen-network/- YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nxtgennetwork
#NationalPorkBoard #PorkInSchools #FarmToSchool #USDAFoods #NationalPorkMonth
12 Oct 2026
Moo-Ving Dairy to your Menus
Whole milk is back in school meals, and new added sugar and sodium limits may arrive in 2027-28.Built for school nutrition directors, menu planners and foodservice teams. Marlon Gordon talks milk, menus and the rule changes ahead with a panel of registered dietitians from the dairy industry and the school cafeteria:Katie Bambacht, RD, SNSVP Nutrition Affairs, National Dairy CouncilJana Miller, RDN, LDNYouth Wellness Manager, The Dairy AllianceSharon Sanders, MS, RDN, LDDirector of Child Nutrition, Birmingham City Schools, ALIn partnership with the National Dairy Council.In this episode:- Why breakfast menus are the biggest challenge under the 2027-28 added sugar and sodium standards- How USDA's new rule extends whole milk and other higher-fat options to breakfast and CACFP- Why milk's saturated fat no longer has to count in your nutrient analysis- Why removing flavored milk can cut participation and raise waste, and why school chocolate milk now averages 7.2g of added sugar per 8 oz- Smart Swaps: recipes taste-tested with 2,500+ students, including the ones that got cut- How Birmingham City Schools is moving toward scratch cooking to control sodium and food cost- Moo Brew: a cold-brew style drink with 8 oz of milk that counts as part of the reimbursable meal- How districts can find grants for smoothie and coffee programs through their local dairy councilTIMESTAMPS00:00 Three dietitians, one toast02:07 From intern to district nutrition director02:52 The rule changes coming for school meals05:06 Grants for smoothie and coffee programs06:31 13 essential nutrients in every milk07:36 Chocolate milk as a recovery drink09:19 Wings: a top seller in Birmingham10:02 Inside the nutrient analysis behind every tray11:15 Smart Swaps: recipes built for the new standards14:30 Why breakfast is the biggest challenge16:20 Favorite recipes: cherry lime smoothie bowl19:06 Can a 20,000-student district scratch cook?22:35 The recipes cut after 2,500 student taste tests24:57 Whole milk is back: what the new rule allows28:46 Chocolate milk: 50% less added sugar30:25 Robotic milkers and cow Fitbits33:36 Why each became a registered dietitian38:10 Advice for young RDs42:16 Do Smart Swaps raise participation?46:16 Is milk actually hydrating?47:55 The next 5 to 10 years of child nutrition50:30 When kids stop drinking milk53:19 Breaking the school meal stigma56:15 School lunch memories57:33 The recipe winning with students: apple nachos1:01:22 16 dairy councils: find yours1:02:23 Why they stay in this work1:06:16 Moo Brew: cold brew with 8 oz of milk1:09:45 Free marketing kits for programsSubscribe to Next Up for straight talk on school nutrition, and turn on notifications so the next episode doesn't slip past you.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH NEXT UP PODCAST━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nextuptalkshow/ Instagram (Marlon Gordon): https://www.instagram.com/nxtgenmarlon/ LinkedIn (Marlon Gordon): https://www.linkedin.com/in/marlon-gordon/ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-up-podcast/id1598968019 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ex3Oj7aodeUe48EJGy9Dz━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PRODUCED BY NXTGEN NETWORK━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtgen_network/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1E8s9SrHUj/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nxtgen-network/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nxtgennetwork#NextUpPodcast #SchoolNutrition #SchoolMeals #NxtGenNetwork #ChildNutrition #K12Foodservice #SchoolBreakfast #SchoolLunch #SchoolNutritionDirector #WholeMilk #SchoolMilk #SmartSwaps #ScratchCooking #RegisteredDietitian #USDA
29 Sept 2026
The Social Hour | The Behind NxtGen Network's Social Media Success
AI won't replace you. The person who uses it will.In this special edition of the Next Up Podcast, Marlon sits down with NxtGen Network Social Media Managers Rachel and Kariss. They talk AI, social media strategy, school nutrition marketing, and what really happens behind NxtGen's content.Rachel and Kariss pull back the curtain on the AI tools they've built into their daily workflow. Kariss shares the AI "brand voice" skill she built to create NxtGen-style content on command. They also break down a client simulator that helps the team anticipate how clients might react to content before it's ever pitched.The conversation goes beyond AI. They talk about the student ambassador program bringing real student voices into the school meals conversation and the 100+ comments on the #THISisschoolmeals Show teaser. Marlon also shares how he built a training portal for Seattle Public Schools' video team in a single afternoon.Plus, get the inside story on Immersion, NxtGen's & Cool School Cafe's new one-day in Tampa, FL and the launch of NxtGen Pro.And which client is the hardest for the NxtGen social media team to work with?NxtGen itself.If you work in school nutrition, K-12 foodservice, social media marketing, school district communications, or you're exploring how AI can improve your workflow, this episode is for you.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━PRODUCED BY NXTGEN NETWORKInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtgen_network/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1E8s9SrHUj/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nxtgen-network/YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nxtgennetworkCONNECT WITH NEXT UP PODCASTInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/nextuptalkshow/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-up-podcast/id1598968019Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ex3Oj7aodeUe48EJGy9DzCONNECT WITH OUR GUESTSRachel | Social Media Manager, NxtGen NetworkLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/racheldreslinskiKariss | Social Media Manager, NxtGen NetworkLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kariss-harvey-96731823aCONNECT WITH MARLONInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtgenmarlon/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marlon-gordon/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS00:00 Marlon brings his "street team" onto the mic01:24 Rachel's origin story and an audition interview at ANC03:24 The hotel switch nobody told Kariss about04:57 The business side of school lunch07:40 How Rachel and Kariss ended up in content08:24 The prank Marlon pulled during Rachel's interview09:43 A day in the life of a school nutrition social media manager11:40 The meeting Rachel actually looks forward to14:52 Introducing Immersion 17:44 The most surprising school meals they've seen19:03 Why that "fried" mac and cheese isn't actually fried20:19 Inside the 100+ comments on the #THISisschoolmeals teaser23:35 The manufacturers and school districts behind their day-to-day25:33 Which client is the hardest to work with?27:04 The AI-made reel with an overnight turnaround29:06 Claude, Gemini, Nano Banana and Veo33:40 Marlon's AI rabbit hole and Gary Vaynerchuk38:37 The student ambassador program giving kids a voice41:56 Introducing NxtGen Pro43:52 How the team grows professionally53:09 Will AI replace social media teams?56:03 The AI training portal built for Seattle Public Schools58:11 Favorite school meals and closing thoughts#SchoolNutrition #K12 #ArtificialIntelligence #SocialMediaMarketing #SchoolMeals #NxtGenNetwork #NextUpPodcast
Who has been a guest on Next Up Podcast
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Melissa Santell
DJ Bonoan
Jamie Ouverson
Cassie Tucker
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YouTube views
1,600,093
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
8 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
7 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 60 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
36
Social presence
94
YouTube
93
Engagement
71
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