Author: fentonadmin

California schools are one of the largest food providers in the U.S., serving 3 million lunches and 1.5 million breakfasts every school day. It’s a gargantuan undertaking, and one that has the potential to have a huge impact on the environment. From the types of food prepared to where ingredients are sourced and how food waste is handled, School Food Professionals have the opportunity to reduce the carbon footprint of their food programs. 

Fortunately, California leads the way in charting a more sustainable path for school food. Below, you’ll find a sampling of some of the innovative approaches that School Food Professionals across the state are taking to create a healthier future for their students and the planet.

Taking a Plant-Forward Approach 

Of all food production, meat and dairy are by far the largest producers of greenhouse gas emissions. Increasing the number of plant-based and plant-forward meals served in schools can go a long way toward cutting down the impact school meals have on our climate while making our students healthier in the process. More than half of the middle and high schools in California’s 25 largest districts offer at least one plant-based entree every day. Hundreds of California school districts offer salad bars to their students, which not only increase lunch participation and fruit and vegetable consumption, but also cut down on food waste by letting kids pick the foods they want to eat. 

Buying Fresh and Local

The easiest way to cut down on the carbon footprint of food is to reduce the number of miles it has to travel from farm to tray. Food transportation is responsible for more than a third of the greenhouse gas emissions involved in fruit and vegetable production. Sourcing ingredients from local producers through farm to school programs eliminates this pollution while ensuring kids get to eat the freshest and healthiest possible meals. 

Cutting Down on Waste

Food waste is the most common single item in U.S. landfills, and it is a major contributor to climate change. California school districts are tackling this challenge head on, introducing a wide range of novel strategies and approaches that are successfully reducing the food waste they produce. Tactics like serving sliced (rather than whole) fruits and vegetables, scheduling recess before lunch, and increasing the length of mealtimes have all been proven to cut down on the amount of food that is wasted. Creating share tables where students can return unconsumed food and beverage items and introducing composting programs ensures that items that would otherwise have been thrown away can be put to good use. 

Partnering With Students

Students aren’t just the main consumers of school food. They’re also important allies in creating sustainable school food programs. Many school food programs solicit students’ input on menu choices, enabling schools to develop recipes using the flavors they love, so food ends up in kids’ stomachs, rather than the trash. By educating students on their impact on the environment, schools are also enlisting them in the fight against food waste. The World Wildlife Fund’s Food Waste Warriors toolkit has a wealth of grade-level-appropriate lessons and activities on the impact of food, paper and plastic waste and what students can do to fight it.  

Climate change impacts everyone. By instituting sustainable programs, California’s school districts and School Food Professionals are creating a greener future and making sure all our kids have a healthy world to grow up in.

Are you a School Food Professional who is working to create healthy, delicious and scratch-cooked meals for California students? We want to celebrate your program!

Through the Powered by School Food Professionals Awards, we’re uplifting the skill, innovation and creativity of school food teams who are improving school food throughout California. By creating good and good-for-you recipes that use fresher ingredients and flavors kids love, School Food Professionals are working to make change happen in schools across the state — one tray at a time.

The Powered by School Food Professionals Awards will name six winners whose submissions go above and beyond in transforming school food in the following categories:

• Best Original Recipe: Creatively using ingredients, flavors and cooking techniques to surprise and delight students.
• Best Scratch-Cooked Adaptation: Transforming a classic school recipe typically made with prepackaged or processed ingredients into a delicious, scratch-cooked dish.
• Best Farm To School Recipe: Using fresh, seasonally available ingredients from local farms and producers. 
• Best Take on a Culinary Trend Recipe: Creatively blending contemporary flavors, culinary techniques or trending ingredients in a surprising and modern school food recipe.
• Best Culturally Relevant Recipe: Creating dishes that authentically represent or are meaningful to the cultural or ethnic heritage of a portion of the student population.
• Community Choice Recipe: Voted on by students, parents and staff, this award spotlights the school food program that has demonstrated the greatest commitment to cooking up better school food. 

Powered by School Food Professionals Awards winners will receive an all-expenses-paid trip for two representatives from each winning program to Los Angeles, where they will be honored at a celebratory event that spotlights their recipes in front of an audience of high-profile media and culinary and lifestyle influencers. Winning programs will also be recognized with a personalized award that memorializes their meaningful contributions.

Submissions are easy, so we invite professionals working in California K-12 public school food programs to enter today! To enter, complete the entry form here by December 1, 2024. 

No purchase or payment is necessary to enter or win, and there is no limit to the number of entries. All entrants must be residents of the state of California and must be 18 years of age or older at the time of entry. 

Winners will be chosen by a panel that includes school food experts. School community members, including parents, students and staff, will be eligible to vote for the Community Choice Recipe category. Finalists will be notified in December 2024. 

For more information on the Powered by School Food Professionals Awards, who is eligible and how to enter, visit the submissions page here.

The School Food Professionals at Fresno Unified School District cook fresh, tasty and healthy food — from scratch — for tens of thousands of students every school day at the district’s production center. On a typical day, they make more than 45,000 meals for the students in California’s third-largest public school district. ”It takes a lot of work to make it happen,” says Monica Garcia Hutchison, the Production Center District Supervisor for Fresno Unified Nutrition Services. “And the students and parents in our district agree that it’s worth it.”

Amazing Meals Begin with Amazing Ingredients

The first step to cooking a delicious school meal is to use delicious ingredients. Fresno Unified’s students love fresh fruit and vegetables, and they’re lucky to be located in California’s Central Valley, home to some of the world’s best produce. More than a quarter of the nation’s food is grown in the region, so Fresno schools have access to a diverse array of fresh-from-the-ground produce right in their own backyard. 

By buying from local farmers and produce vendors, Fresno Unified School District is able to get the highest-quality, best-tasting ingredients for students while supporting local families and communities. 

Powered By People

To create their menus, Fresno Unified taps into the expertise of an incredible team that includes nutritionists, site managers and operators, chefs, and, most importantly, the students themselves. The district taste-tests new recipes frequently, both with students who come to visit the production center on field trips and by going out to school sites around the district. Once they’ve got a recipe that kids love, they then work out how to make it at scale. 

Making that happen are the more than 100 employees in Fresno Unified’s production center, who use fresh ingredients to make about 36,000 lunches and 10,000 breakfasts every day. Their bakery team makes fresh whole grain rich rolls, cookies and other items, which they pack and ship to schools daily, so they’re served at the optimal quality. In their Cook/Chill department, they cook the components that go into main entrees, such as chili beans or marinara sauce, before packaging them fresh and sending them off to students.

Keeping the Process Moving

Making this much food from scratch, while ensuring that it’s fresh, healthy and delicious, takes serious organization. That means making sure they have enough staff and all the ingredients needed for each meal. It means making sure everything they serve is fresh and meets the high standards they set for student food. It means making sure that the special diet team has their equipment all set to cook and prepare meals for students with allergies or dietary restrictions, and that all their machines and tools are working in tip-top shape. And it means focusing on quality control throughout the process to make sure that the team is making the best and most nutritious meals they can. 

The “Why” Behind the Work

What brings this whole complex system together and keeps it moving smoothly is a shared sense of values. Everyone who works there has the same goal in mind: making sure Fresno students get the healthy and tasty food that they need, because they know the important role that nutritious meals play in helping Fresno students to grow, succeed and thrive.

“Every single person here — from the nutritionists and chefs who plan the meals to the bakers and cooks who make them and the machinists who keep our equipment humming — puts their heart into what they do,” Monica says. “Because at the end of the day, we all want the students to get a great meal.”

Healthy school lunches don’t just provide fuel for the day. They give our kids what they need to succeed in the classroom and beyond. Research shows that eating balanced, nutritious school meals improves children’s health, mental and emotional well-being, and ability to perform in class. 

Since 1962, National School Lunch Week has uplifted the many benefits that healthy school lunches have for our young people. Those benefits are especially strong here in California, which is home to the nation’s largest school lunch program, serving nearly 550 million lunches in the 2022-23 school year alone. This week, we’re celebrating the impact that school lunches—and the School Food Professionals who make them—make on the health and futures of children throughout the state. 

So what goes into making a great school lunch?

Nutrition

All school meals must adhere to federal standards to ensure that they meet kids’ nutritional requirements. Putting that into practice takes the help of school districts’ school nutrition directors, nutritionists and other School Food Professionals who oversee the development of school menus to ensure students get the vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients they need.

Creativity

Creating healthy meals that kids love takes inspiration, iteration, playfulness and the ability to listen. When creating recipes, School Food Professionals start by asking the experts on what kids like to eat — the kids themselves. By understanding the foods that their students like (and what they may not be as excited about), School Food Professionals can create recipes that meet kids’ nutritional needs and still burst with the flavors they love. 

Fresh Ingredients

Tasty, healthy meals begin with good ingredients. That means avoiding highly processed foods and using the freshest possible vegetables, fruits, proteins and other ingredients. Many schools and districts source directly from local producers through farm to school programs, ensuring their students get the highest-quality meals while strengthening their communities and local economies.  

Culinary Skill

Across California, School Food Professionals are stepping up their scratch-cooked game, making more meals using fresh, whole ingredients. They use their deep experience — from school kitchens, culinary schools, restaurants, catering, and other food service work – to make thousands of delicious, good-and-good-for-you meals every day.

Teamwork

Every school meal is a team effort. From district offices and production kitchens to school kitchens and cafeterias, School Food Professionals work together to provide the best possible meals for our kids. While they work many different jobs and possess a wide range of skills and backgrounds, they all have the same purpose — creating fantastic meals that help kids to do and be their best.

During Farm to School Month, we celebrate the many programs throughout the nation that are connecting kids with healthy, locally grown food, providing nutrition and agriculture education and strengthening communities by supporting local farmers. 

The positive impact of Farm to School programs on kids, farmers and communities is well established. Students whose schools have these types of programs eat more fruits and vegetables, engage in more physical activity and do better in class. Local farmers bring in more money that allows them to expand operations and create jobs. Research has found that every $1.00 invested by schools in local food creates $2.16 in additional economic activity for the state economy. 

It’s no surprise that California has been a driver of this movement from the very beginning. After all, more than a third of our nation’s vegetables and more than three quarters of our fruits and nuts are grown right here in the Golden State. And the State of California has invested more than $100 million in farm to school programs since 2020 through the California Farm to School Incubator Grant Program. California-grown farm to school programs have become models that are emulated around the country. 

This month, we’re spotlighting some of the innovative programs throughout the state that are making a difference in their communities and charting new paths forward for healthy, locally connected school food. 

Planting Seeds: The Edible Schoolyard Project (Berkeley)

Legendary California Chef Alice Waters founded the Edible Schoolyard Project in 1995. Working with students, educators, families, farmers, cooks and artists, the program transformed a vacant lot at Berkeley Unified School District’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School into a vibrant garden growing fresh, organic produce. The program nourishes students’ minds as well as their bodies, using the garden as a tool to teach about healthy food, cooking, agriculture and more. The Edible Schoolyard quickly became a model for healthy school lunch programs everywhere, and they now have a network of more than 5,800 school food programs around the world.      

Focusing on Fresh: Farmers’ Market Salad Bar (Santa Monica)

McKinley Elementary in Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District launched their Farmers’ Market Salad Bar in 1997, replacing the produce in their salad bars with seasonal, organic fruits and vegetables grown by local farmers and prepared from scratch on site. They took students on farmers’ market tours and taught them about where their food comes from and how it is grown. As a result, students’ use of the salad bar tripled. The program was such a success that the district quickly began expanding it to other schools, bringing Farmers’ Market Salad Bars to all 15 schools in just four years.

Harvesting Education & Well-being: Farm to School (Oxnard)

In rich soil, great things will grow. Oxnard Union High School District’s vibrant local agricultural community, engaged students, and passionate community partners created the perfect environment for a successful farm to school program. Since 2016, Oxnard Union’s Farm to School has focused on improving nutrition, expanding school gardens, promoting locally grown food and developing student leadership skills. The program won the California School Board Association’s Golden Bell Award in 2020, and the gardens at schools throughout the district grow food that is used in cafeteria meals, culinary programs, nutrition education and more. 

Healthy, Local & Sustainable: Plateful (Lincoln)

Plateful, the food and nutrition service at Western Placer County Unified School District, is committed to providing fresh, balanced, locally sourced meals that students love. Key to this approach is their farm to school program, which works with producers throughout the area to bring fresh, healthy and local ingredients to students’ plates. The district has instituted a wide range of programs, from “Harvest of the Month” programs featuring seasonal ingredients, to “Meet the Farmer” events and other educational opportunities that help kids learn where their food comes from while developing lifelong healthy habits. 

We’re proud to celebrate the amazing farm to school programs in every corner of California. When schools and agricultural producers work together, the result is more nutritious meals, healthier kids, and stronger communities.

When I was nine years old, one of my favorite shows was “Great American Chefs” on PBS. You’d have one person alone in a very quiet kitchen, making one fantastic dish. Watching it, I knew that was exactly what I wanted to do.

So when I started working in the culinary industry at 13, I thought that was how it was going to be. It turns out, nobody cooks like that. Anywhere. Ever. The kitchen was always incredibly busy, full of people cutting and cooking and managing chaos, and I fell in love with it right away. 

I spent 25 years working in restaurants and bakeries before I made the jump to school food. I’d been volunteering in my kids’ school, and it was clear this was a place I could really make a difference by pushing to cook more meals from scratch and cut down on plastic and single-use items. 

One thing you learn for sure in restaurants is that you have to know what your customers like. At West Contra Costa Unified School District, we see our students as partners in building the recipes we cook and serve. We want to know exactly what they think and what they like, even if it’s something simple, like spaghetti with bolognese sauce. 

When we made our old bolognese recipe, what we heard from students was that it was too watery. It was missing that flavor and character that you get from a really good quality tomato sauce. From a chef’s perspective, what that tells me is that we needed to fix the basic ingredients. So we came up with a new recipe that draws its flavor from delicious, healthy, locally grown foods.  

We start with Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes, which are organically grown in Northern California. The onions come from about 60 miles due east of here, in Turlock, while the garlic comes from a little ways south of us in Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world. Combine those with a little basil and some high-quality meat from Mindful Meats in Marin County, and you’ve got a great bolognese sauce. The response we’ve gotten back from the students has been fantastic. They don’t know it, but the ingredients we’re using are the same ones that are used in some of the best restaurants in Napa Valley. 

The people who work in our kitchens have a mix of backgrounds. Some come from catering or restaurants or things like that, while for others, this is their first food service job. But whatever their background, we make sure they get what they need to do the job. Everyone gets food safety training, of course, and I teach a lot of “culinary boot camps” to build the skills of our team. We start with basic knife skills, cooking basics, and we have opportunities to grow into advanced baking and things like that. If you want to learn, the sky’s the limit. 

But whatever route people take to get here, I feel like we all do this work because we love cooking for kids. It’s the most rewarding part of this job. When you work in a restaurant or a bakery, you’re serving faceless strangers who often don’t even know you’re there. Working in school food is a whole different ball game. You’re serving kids who are happy to be there, happy to have the food you’re serving. They’re glad to see us, and we’re happy to see them. It’s much more fulfilling than any other job.

I’m proud of what we’re doing here at West Contra Costa Unified School District. We’re cooking more meals from scratch, using more wholesome, local and organic ingredients and fewer heavily processed foods. And we’re not just doing that in one school. Our team cooks 15,000 meals for 56 sites, every single school day.

I talk to people all the time who tell me they wish their district could do what we’re doing here, I tell them to keep advocating for it, because there’s change coming. 

Here in California, the whole state is moving toward better and scratch-cooked food. And it doesn’t stop there, either. The USDA is making sure that schools across the country are doing a better job of incorporating more scratch-cooked foods into their lunch menus.

It’s an exciting time. School food is getting better than it’s ever been, and we’re pushing to keep this momentum going.

Across California, school is in full swing. Kids and parents are getting back into the rhythm of schoolwork, homework and extracurricular activities. With so much packed into the day, it’s more crucial than ever that students get what they need to succeed.

Academic achievement begins long before kids sit down at their desks. Study after study shows that fresh, healthy meals are critical to doing well in school. Since students consume more than a third of their daily calories at school, school meals play a central role in supporting students’ physical health, mental health and classroom performance. 

Here are just a few of the ways that fresh and healthy school meals lead to better educational outcomes for California kids:

1. Energy, Concentration and Performance
   Starting the day with a nutritious, fresh breakfast allows kids to show up to school ready to learn, giving them better energy, concentration and memory. As a result, they show across-the-board improvements in reading, math, science, social studies and overall GPA. Students in schools that serve healthy lunches perform better academically and score higher on standardized tests. 
2. Good Food = Good Mood
   When kids feel good, they’re able to do and be their best. Youth with healthy diets have higher self esteem and better overall mental health. And eating fresh, healthy meals has been shown to improve classroom behavior and reduce the rates of school discipline and suspensions. 
3. Healthy Body, Healthy Mind
   Proper nutrition is crucial for brain development. Not getting enough protein, iodine, iron, folate, zinc, vitamin B12 or other key nutrients, can have a major impact on kids’ cognitive abilities. Healthy school meals also help kids stay physically healthy, so they miss fewer days of school. 

Every child deserves the opportunity to realize their potential. That’s why School Food Professionals throughout California are working hard to make sure that all kids have access to healthy meals that can help them thrive. 

At every step along the way, from sourcing ingredients to planning and cooking meals, School Food Professionals give students what they need to achieve. By incorporating farm-to-school programs, expanding scratch cooking and developing tasty new menus and recipes, they’re cooking up success for our kids in the classroom and beyond.