Think Price Chopper, Wal-Mart—anywhere that allows customers to try it before they buy it. Sampling foods to get consumer’s opinion is common in supermarkets, and now the De Soto High School cafeteria once a year.

Taste Test Tuesday is a district-wide tradition, where companies looking to sell their product at schools set up booths for students to try what they’re selling.

Amy Droegemier is the director of student Nutrition at USD 232, as well as one of the driving forces behind Taste Test Tuesday’s tradition.

“[The reason we do Taste Test Tuesday] is so the vendors can show off the product that they have that meet our new regulations that we have to fall under for a la carte. There are lots of new formulations and we wanted the kids to be able to try them risk-free without having to buy them,” Droegemier said. “So they can see what are some new items that we might want to bring in, and what’s going to sell well and what the students would actually buy.”

Taste Test Tuesday has been a tradition for the USD 232 school district for only three years. It began as “a way to get elementary kids to try fruits and vegetables and get them to try new things … then we went to Mill Valley High School, and we were a little overwhelmed with trying to keep that same model—so we ended up with more of the format seen today and we thought it was a huge success. We wanted to make sure we could share that with both high schools and the next year it just became an annual thing,” Droegemier said.

Many different companies participate in Taste Test Tuesday every year. Osage Marketing and General Mills are just two of the companies that had vendors such as Stephanie Kilpatrick and Tom Desmond represent them at De Soto High School this year.

While Kilpatrick has done Taste Test Tuesday in the past, it was Desmond’s first time.

“We [General Mills] are really ahead of the new guidelines and have a lot of products today that are whole grain and meet the equivalence for the USDA regulations,” Desmond said, when asked why General Mills decided to accept Droegemier’s invitation this year.

New guidelines are just one of the reasons vendors decide to come out.

“We [come back], to show the new products. See what the kids think. Then I report back to manufacturers and let them know if it’s being perceived well, or just give them feedback on how everyone’s liking it,” Kilpatrick said.

For Droegemier, Taste Test Tuesday is not only a way for vendors to see what kids enjoy, or for her to know what to stock and sell, but it is about the students’ overall enjoyment.

“The kids should always let us know if there are things they don’t see that they’ve seen in the past, they should just stop me. I’m in here a lot and I want [students] to be able to get some feedback. We’re here for you. You’re our customers, and we want you happy,” Droegemier said.