Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch II: Maximizing School Food Service

Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch II: Maximizing School Food Service

Summary

Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch II (WHL) has continued to overcome the constraints which severely limit grower access to the school food service market. WHL’s food education programming in Madison schools continues to thrive and give students access to a variety of locally produced fruits and vegetables. Processing of locally-produced vegetables into ‘food-service ready’ forms continues at a local grocery co-op’s kitchen. The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Food Service has chosen to take advantage of this local, affordable, processed product only minimally, but WHL’s successful classroom snack program has grown to provide classrooms in four Madison schools (1,600 students) a fresh vegetable snack each week. Smaller school districts where more meals are prepared on-site provide more opportunity to work with the school lunch program and WHL has begun to respond to the many schools surrounding Madison expressing interest in farm-to-school.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Education: Preparing Elementary Student Palates

Short Term Objective: Elementary school students know the sources, characteristics, and taste of diverse varieties of locally grown, fresh produce.

Intermediate Term Objective: Elementary school students are receptive to new school lunch menu items consisting of or incorporating locally grown, fresh produce.

Long Term Objective: Elementary school students enjoy and consistently consume school lunch menu items incorporating locally grown, fresh produce and have the basis for a lifelong understanding and appreciation for sustainable farmers and farming.

Menu Development: Expanding Fresh Food Offerings on School Lunch Menu

Short Term Objective: School food service staff recognize opportunities and means of incorporating locally grown, fresh produce into school lunch menus.

Intermediate Term Objective: School food service staff continue to create new school lunch menus incorporating locally grown, fresh produce.

Long Term Objective: Addition of new school lunch menus incorporating locally grown, fresh produce is an institutionalized component of the school food service menu development process.

Processing: Providing ‘Food Service Ready’ Produce through Williamson St. Co-op Kitchen

Short Term Objective: Co-op staff identify the legal, regulatory, and technical requirements for use of the Co-op’s equipment by third parties (i.e., farmers).

Intermediate Term Objective: Co-op staff develop administrative and technical protocols that permit the use of the co-op’s processing facility by farmers.

Long Term Objective: Co-op staff develop effective working relationships with groups of farmers who regularly use the co-op’s facility to process locally grown, fresh produce for sale to local schools and other institutions.

Recruitment and Organizing: Expanding Grower Ability to Supply

Short Term Objective: Local, sustainable fruit and vegetable farmers learn about the opportunities to organize themselves to produce for the Madison school food service market.

Intermediate Term Objective: Local, sustainable fruit and vegetable farmers organize themselves to produce for the Madison school food service market.

Long Term Objective: Established organizations of local, sustainable fruit and vegetable farmers are selling to a robust institutional market.

Outreach: Educating Growers and Schools in Region about Farm to School Possibilities

Short Term Objective: Farmers and school food service staff in the Upper Midwest learn of the opportunities and challenges encountered by the Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch project.

Intermediate Term Objective: Farmers and school food service staff initiate farm-to-school projects in their own Upper Midwest communities.

Long Term Objective: Farm-to-school programs are established as a common component of the food and farm landscape of the Upper Midwest.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Short-Term Objectives

Objective: Elementary school students know the sources, characteristics, and taste of diverse varieties of locally grown, fresh produce.

Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch-sponsored educational activities continue to provide opportunities for students to learn about and to eat local fruits and vegetables in three pilot elementary schools and additional schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD).

– 300 students from three elementary schools participated in field trips to local farms where they learned about food production, planted seeds, and harvested and ate vegetables. Two of the three field trips were hosted in February by a farm specializing in winter production of spinach under hoophouses.

– Local ‘farmer-educators’ visited 55 classrooms in four elementary schools and led food and farm educational activities for 1,060 students.
1,200 students in three elementary schools participated in a tomato seedling activity where they transplanted tomatoes into pots they took home to grow over the summer.

– Successfully piloted ‘classroom snack program’ continues in three elementary schools and one middle school. A fresh fruit or vegetable snack (locally procured when possible) reached a total of 1,600 students each week. Educational resources related to the fruit/vegetable (apples, carrots, sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes, kohlrabi), and the farm it was purchased from were provided to classroom teachers to be used during snack time.

– ‘Chef in the Classroom’ program piloted with six classes at one middle school in the spring of ‘06 and then launched fall of ’06 in all eight 7th grade classrooms (180 students). Once a month during the school year each 7th grader participated in a cooking lesson led by a local chef with expertise in purchasing and utilizing local produce.

– Collaborated with Friends of Troy Gardens (a local urban agriculture organization) to plan and execute a five-week food and nutrition curriculum to 2nd/3rd grade classrooms (120 students) at Mendota Elementary school.

Objective: School food service staff recognize opportunities and means of incorporating locally grown, fresh produce into school lunch menus.

Given the industrial sized and oriented meal program in the MMSD (15,000 pre-packed meals per day from one kitchen facility), there exist limited opportunities to incorporate locally grown, fresh produce into their school lunch program. Despite this, WHL worked with the MMSD to develop a handful of menu items that were successfully trialed with students. These included vegetarian chili, baked potato soup, rhubarb muffins, and carrot-sweet potato muffins. In addition, we worked with the Willy St. Co-op’s kitchen to process the necessary produce items into a form that were ‘ready-to-use’ for the MMSD Food Service. The nature of the menu items (which utilize small amounts of produce per serving) kept the price per serving within range for the food service.

With these limited number of menu items, we can say we have achieved our objective of the school food service staff recognizing opportunities to incorporate locally grown produce into their menus. And yet, we found there remained an unwillingness on the part of the MMSD Food Service to take the next step and actually incorporate these few items into their menus. So aside from 225 lbs of sweet potatoes (for holiday ‘harvest muffins’) and 140 lbs of potatoes (for one day of potato soup), 2006 saw MMSD purchasing very little local produce.

We are pleased that the MMSD Food Service has been willing to cooperate with our classroom snack program by allowing the Willy St. Co-op to deliver fresh vegetable snacks to the district kitchen and in turn distributing the snacks to our four participating schools.

Objective: Co-op staff identify the legal, regulatory, and technical requirements for use of the Co-op’s equipment by third parties (i.e., farmers).

While use of the Co-op’s kitchen by third parties was originally being considered when the kitchen facility was built, pursuit of these plans are currently on hold. One reason for this is that the Co-op’s own need for use of the kitchen is greater than originally anticipated. They currently supply their retail outlet’s deli, a number of accounts with other food establishments, and they are opening a second retail store in early 2008 which will require increased production as well.

The primary purpose of allowing third parties (farmers) to process their own foods in this kitchen facility was to have a source of ‘food-service ready’ local foods available for the school food service to utilize. The Co-op itself is currently able to serve this function as they purchase direct from a range of local producers and can create ‘food-service ready’ product on request (to a certain limit).

Objective: Farmers and school food service staff in the Upper Midwest learn of the opportunities and challenges encountered by the Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch project.

A strong working relationship with the WI Department of Public Instruction has been developed which has facilitated outreach to food service directors across the state via articles in their quarterly newsletter. The Madison Metropolitan School District’s Media Services helped to create a 5 minute DVD about the WHL program which has been shared with school districts around the state. WHL has also presented at numerous meetings and conferences to share what we have learned to date and to inspire others to take on the challenges and reap the rewards of starting farm to school projects in their communities. Presentations have been made to:

– 25 Wisconsin schools participating in the USDA Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program as part of a Wisline conference with the Department of Public Instruction in January and again in September of 2006. Provided Food Service Directors in these schools information about WHL and how to locate farms in their area to purchase from.

– 40 educators from a variety of Wisconsin school districts at the Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education Annual Conference, Stevens Point, WI, January 28, 2006.

– Farmers at the annual Iowa Network for Community Agriculture conference in Des Moines, IA on February 4, 2006.

– 250 WI fruit and vegetable producers re the USDA Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program at the WI Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Producer conference in Oconomowoc, WI Feb 8&9, 2006.

– 30 Food Service Directors from around the state at the Wisconsin School Nutrition Association Conference in Green Bay, August 2, 2006.

– 40 Food Service staff from eight school districts in Western Wisconsin at the WI School Nutrition Association’s Chapter 11 annual meeting, September 21, 2006.

– 70 Food Service Directors, educators, and nutrition advocates at the WI Action for Healthy Kids Summit in the WI Dells, November 30, 2006.

Objective: Local, sustainable fruit and vegetable farmers learn about the opportunities to organize themselves to produce for the Madison school food service market.

WHL has remained engaged with two grower cooperatives in the area, a produce auction, and a local business that is now distributing dairy products in the area. While the Madison Schools present little opportunity at this time for fresh produce, other schools who are more capable of utilizing whole produce are expressing more interest. As these opportunities become clear they are being communicated to growers participating in these cooperatives and in this way we continue to lay the groundwork for moving whole produce into area schools.

In order to grow this opportunity to sell produce into schools or other institutions, we will need to find a way to process this produce into ‘food-service ready’ forms. The Willy St. Co-op’s kitchen has been able to provide vegetable snacks to four Madison schools, but is unable to expand much from there given their other responsibilities. Another entity needs to take on this processing work. Before these pieces of the puzzle are in place, it’s difficult to inspire local producers to organize themselves to produce for a market that isn’t quite there.

Intermediate Term Objectives:

Intermediate Term Objective: Elementary school students are receptive to new school lunch menu items consisting of or incorporating locally grown, fresh produce.

WHL has been unable to clearly assess the impact of our food education programming on student’s willingness to eat new menu items because the MMSD food service has been unable and/or unwilling to include new menu items on their breakfast and lunch menu. Some of the new menu items trialed at our pilot schools were found to be unworkable from a production standpoint. Baked potatoes were a huge hit with students but lack of time and MMSD’s pre-pack system prevented them from making the regular menu because they couldn’t be prepared in a consistent or timely manner. On the other hand, a carrot-sweet potato muffin recipe was created, was well-received by students, met the cost requirements of the food service, and yet has not been included on the lunch menu.

In the venues where we have been able to provide students with fresh eating opportunities, we see time and time again how receptive students can be to eating fresh foods. Whether they are eating a vegetable wrap as part of a classroom tasting activity, freshly harvested spinach on a farm field trip, or a carrot-kohlrabi-apple salad they created themselves as part of WHL’s chef-in-the-classroom program, students continue to display an interest and willingness to try new foods. Significantly, we have also learned from teachers participating in WHL’s classroom snack program that even without the presence of a special farmer or chef guest to inspire appetites, that week after week their students are enjoying eating carrots, kohlrabi, and sweet potatoes for their snack once a week.

Intermediate Term Objective: School food service staff continue to create new school lunch menus incorporating locally grown, fresh produce.

The MMSD Food Service has access to affordable, locally-grown, ‘food-service ready’ produce through the Willy St. Co-op’s kitchen. For the time being this opportunity is being taken advantage of only minimally, with some purchases of diced potatoes (for a ‘baked potato soup’) and mashed sweet potatoes (for sweet potato muffins) – see short term objectives for more on this.

Intermediate Term Objective: Co-op staff develop administrative and technical protocols that permit the use of the co-op’s processing facility by farmers.

Third party use of the Co-op’s processing kitchen has yet to be developed. The Co-op is opening a new store in the spring of 2008 and anticipates expanding their use of the kitchen facility to meet the needs of that store. It remains to be seen whether there will be enough ‘off-hours’ time with their kitchen or whether they are still interested, to facilitate farmer or third party use of the kitchen. For the time being the co-op is processing the vegetables themselves using their existing network of local producers to supply the product in season.

Intermediate Term Objective: Local, sustainable fruit and vegetable farmers organize themselves to produce for the Madison school food service market.

Producers haven’t needed to organize themselves for the Madison school food service market because the Willy St. Co-op is serving as ‘intermediary’ and is able to take care of the needs expressed by MMSD. In response to demand for whole produce by other area institutions, such as a local convention center and the county facility providing meals to the county senior centers and jail, a nearby produce auction has begun to organize themselves to provide a delivery service to the Madison area. They are also in the process of setting up ‘pre-season contracts’ with institutional buyers that will allow their farmers to plan their planting schedules for the coming season. A small-mid scale processing facility would open up even more opportunities as these institutions utilize quite a bit more processed product than whole.

Intermediate Term Objective: Farmers and school food service staff initiate farm-to-school projects in their own Upper Midwest communities.

As a result of WHL’s presentations, outreach, and media coverage many school districts have expressed interest in starting their own farm-to-school programs. Most of these districts have a less centralized school meal program, retain some capacity for preparation of whole produce and scratch-cooking and most importantly strong interest on the part of the Food Service Director. School districts in Evansville, Mt. Horeb, Waterloo, Monona Grove, Viroqua, Sauk City, Middleton, Waunakee, Oregon, and Prairie Du Chein are some examples of Wisconsin communities who either want to or have already started farm-to-school projects. WHL anticipates serving in a consultant role to facilitate relationships with producers for these districts.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

WHL’s educational activities in the classroom and on farms continue to show student willingness to eat fresh vegetables including those unfamiliar to them. WHL’s ‘Chef in the Classroom’ program in partnership with local chefs moves beyond ‘tasting activities’ to provide food preparation skill training with middle school students. WHL’s classroom snack program has identified which local produce items can affordably be processed for purchase by schools and has demonstrated students will consume fresh vegetables on an ongoing basis, even without visiting farmers or chefs. Through this snack program for the 2006-2007 schools over $6,400 worth of carrots, apples, sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes, kohlrabi, and sweet peppers were purchased from local farms, processed at the Willy St. Co-op’s kitchen facility, and distributed by the MMSD Food Service to 1,600 students in 4 schools. This program will be continue for the 2007-2008 school year.

WHL has demonstrated that new menu items can affordably be created and served by the MMSD Food Service. ‘Food-service ready’ produce can be purchased through the Willy St. Co-op’s kitchen. In 2006 the MMSD Food Service took advantage of this option only minimally, purchasing 210 lbs of potatoes for potato soup and 225 lbs of sweet potatoes for muffins ($620 value for local growers).

With the Willy St. Co-op’s kitchen facility processing 200lbs of vegetables each week for WHL’s classroom snack program, the challenge of processing produce into a ‘food-service ready’ form has begun to be addressed. We have learned the Co-op kitchen’s capacity to grow beyond this level of processing will be limited due to the Co-op’s expansion into a second retail space in Madison. Valuable yield and cost information on various processed vegetables has also been gained through research conducted at the Co-op’s kitchen. A research brief on this work will be available on the WHL website (www.reapfoodgroup.org/farmtoschool) spring of 2008.

The alternative school fundraiser begun in 2005 expanded from one elementary school to eight school in 2006. Sales of local farm products (honey, syrup, winter vegetables, cheese, summer sausage, etc..) increased dramatically with the additional schools. Total sales were $18,500 with schools keeping $8,100 of this as profit. Some schools utilized these funds for farm-to-school related activities including their classroom snack program. This popular fundraiser is expected to expand again in 2007.

With the lessons learned from working with the MMSD meal program, WHL a better grasp on what it takes for a school food service to successfully integrate local produce into their meal programs. This understanding, along with expanded outreach to schools across the state, has resulted in a wide variety of school districts expressing interest in purchasing from local farms and implementing food education activities. WHL has already begun and plans to continue consulting with school districts that are particularly well situated to implement farm-to-school programming. One exciting development is a relationship with a food service management company, Taher, Inc. which manages school meal programs in a number of school districts throughout Wisconsin and the Midwest. WHL will be partnering with Taher, Inc. to pilot a farm-to-school program in Evansville in 2007. Taher intends to take what they learn from this pilot and from WHL and replicate it in many of the other 100 schools they manage. WHL’s ongoing relationship with the WI Department of Public Instruction (DPI) will continue to expand the reach of farm-to-school.

Collaborators: