By Abigail Blinn, Rogue Valley Food Food System Network & Rogue Valley Farm to School

Note – this set of experiences are a reflection of the school districts and communities served in the Rogue Valley in Oregon and may not apply to other school nutrition operations. 

The process of getting farm-fresh products into school lunches may seem like a daunting task to some, but how hard can it be? Rogue Valley Farm to School (RVF2S) has been working on this mission, along with food and garden education, for about 12 years! Yet, they are still faced with daily challenges in supporting schools to purchase local products. This year particularly increased barriers in spending, time, and overall capacity of nutrition services and regional growers. With quick pivots, the RVF2S procurement team was able to shift purchasing in one of the hardest hit communities in the Rogue Valley, Phoenix Talent School District (PTSD).

Let’s begin with the departure of the procurement director with RVF2S and the start of a new nutrition director with PTSD. The shifts were constant – as this occurred about four months after the devastating Almeda fire ripped through the towns of Phoenix and Talent, displacing 80% of children and their families in the district, while still working and living through a global pandemic. Fortunately, the Oregon Farm to School Bill, passed in summer 2019, provided $15 million to school districts to support education on and procurement of Oregon-grown food. Phoenix-Talent School District had opted into spending a portion of this funding, about $20,000 to support farms and ranches that have also suffered from major shifts and trauma in 2020.

However, spending these funds is not the most straightforward task. The Farm to School Bill funds a grant program managed by the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) for both education organizations and school districts to opt into for procurement, or sourcing, of Oregon-grown products. The grant program requires an application, tracking, and reporting on all purchases. This is something nutrition service directors and staff are used to doing for their meal program, but it does require increased capacity to complete additional purchasing and tracking from new vendors.

Apart from the time it takes to manage, there is added complexity depending on how some foodservice operations are managed. School district food services work in conjunction with federal meal service programs, one being the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Schools receive reimbursement from the federal government to offer meals for students who qualify for free and reduced school lunches. In PTSD, that is 100% of the students. School districts that are independently operated, meaning there is no third-party food management company such as Sodexo or Chartwells, have more flexibility in their budget and the reimbursement process. With food management companies, as PTSD has, their budget is reinforced by nationwide standards. They also have restrictions on who to buy from; they are not able to purchase from unofficial vendors and may risk receiving reimbursement for meals if doing so.

Other barriers schools have in purchasing locally to account for:

COST – the market value of local products is often way out of the school’s budget. The schools in the Rogue Valley typically charge $1.50-2.50 per meal, and budget around $1.25 for each meal per child. The cost for each portion of fruit or vegetable per meal is targeted at around $0.35! Local products range quite a bit depending on what you are sourcing. Most fruits or vegetables can run $0.50-1.00 per portion – which makes a huge difference ordering meals for an entire district (PTSD serves 800 each day)

TIME – nutrition directors do not have an easy job. They are expected to plan meals for multiple schools, manage their relationship with the district, parents, and if they are under contract with a food service management company, are expected to abide by their rules as well. They also manage a kitchen and kitchen staff to get breakfast, lunch, and snacks out to kids each school day. With changes due to the pandemic and wildfire season, there are even higher stakes in getting children fed as the need increased significantly and find ways to send meals home to kids.

PLANNING – menus are planned at least 6 weeks ahead of time and food orders are placed and received weekly. The plan is set in stone so nutrition services can make sure to meet all the lunch requirements; correct portion sizes for each food group and each week representing a variety in terms of types of fruits and vegetables. This makes it hard to adjust to what products are available and when they are in season. A farm can crop plan for sure but is dependent on weather and other external influences.

VENDORS – Approved vendors from food service management companies often offer a larger variety, more readily available/ready to eat, and cheap products. There are specified vendors identified by their contract, making it a time-consuming and expensive process to add new vendors, such as several small farms!

CROP UNFAMILIARITY – Both the kitchen staff and children have to be somewhat familiar with the food item to prepare it and be willing to try it! Even if the nutrition director and staff are familiar with the item, it still takes some work to get some crops school service ready.

FOOD SAFETY– RVF2S hears often a concern for food safety with small and mid-sized growers not meeting food safety guidelines. This is of particular concern since children are at high risk for food-borne illnesses. However, most farms are very interested in preventing illness as well and ensure a product with minimal processing is needed.

Seems RVF2S has their work cut out for them. So, how does an organization come alongside schools to encourage and support the spending of these funds? There are a couple of school districts in the region we can rely on for well-established examples of what works. Though these are independent operations, they can still provide guidance with scratch cooking, unfamiliar products, how to balance the cost with other commodity foods and to reassure safety in products. Sometimes it takes seeing another in the same position making it work! RVF2S connects and shares experiences from each of the school districts we work with.

Rogue Valley Farm to School typically does taste tests and harvest meals to mitigate any fear with trying new food items with the kids. With COVID-19, there was not the ability to go into the schools, but the garden educators still introduce and talk about new foods through activities and kids get some items to taste through the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP), a federal funded snack program schools can apply to be a part of.

The procurement team with RVF2S, newly formed since December, has piloted a few ways to better support the spending of the procurement grant funds. At first, items available were sent out to the nutrition directors with cost and contact information with farms 4-6 weeks before having the plan the menu. With two dietitians and a professional chef on the team, they created standardized recipes for school nutrition staff to use and keep for future years when items are back in season. For most of the school districts, that’s about all the support they needed, product and contact information, and recipes, but others have a few hoops to jump through before being able to purchase.

For PTSD, we had to figure out the cost barrier, approved vendors, and make sure to plan ahead. Determined to ensure PTSD could spend their funding down, there were many conversations with RVF2S, PTSD, and Sodexo’s nutrition service director for the district about their price points, what they might be able to compromise with, and how the process might work to purchase these products. To compare products price/lb. and student serving, the team converted all products available for purchase to the price per student portion, referencing the USDA Food Buying Guide that provides standard servings for product weight amounts. This made it easy to determine whether or not the item was within Sodexo’s budget. The School District was crucial in supporting this process, as they were able to add RVF2S and Organically Grown Company (OGC) as vendors; RVF2S could then place orders with farms directly and PTSD could be the ones to purchase. The food company OGC could source a larger variety and quantity grown or processed in Oregon that PTSD could purchase from.

With attempts at trying out different products for a Spring break pack out and offering smaller portions of items to be mixed in with commodity products, the logistics took longer than the products were available initially. The procurement team started creating weekly available lists with the item information, form it comes in, and price per portion. OGC’s availability list is sorted through and items are chosen based on locality and kitchen familiarity. There is one item on the list that is highlighted as the Harvest of the Month and accompanied by standardized recipes. Any school district can use this, and since it has products that are available state-wide, other farm-to-school regional procurement hubs can use it as a resource.

This week, Phoenix-Talent School District had its first purchase from Wandering Roots spinach to be served on Earth Day! Once the procedure of purchasing is established, the flow of purchasing can run much smoother.

So why is RVF2S doing this?

1. Above all else, feeding kids healthy food is a priority for RVF2S and the school districts we serve. The NSLP is the largest meal program in the US – thus, a huge opportunity to make a large impact in school districts with 100% of the students qualifying for free and reduced school lunches. Meal programs that offer better tasting fruits and vegetables and food options that reflect the community they serve ultimately lead to a better relationship to food and health as kids are growing and learning.
2. There is a demand for better school meals from parents, kids, and the surrounding community. Leveraging what the community wants is an important aspect of this work. Parents, teachers, and students all have a say in what they are served and can expect more out of school lunch!
3. Lastly, but most certainly not least, shifting where large institutions are purchasing from to small and mid-sized growers that are growing food ethically and using responsible growing practices means supporting the work they are doing and contributing to a more resilient economy and food system.

With some experience in the farm-to-school world through Oregon’s state-wide network and another state-wide program on the east coast, I was able to jump in quite readily with the procurement team as a RARE AmeriCorps member. As a new and temporary member of this community, it was both devastating and uplifting to be along for the ride. This year has stretched many farms and ranches, schools and early education sites, parents and students far beyond comfort with both the pandemic and wildfire season. Farms and ranches have had to pivot to meet direct-to-consumer needs as restaurants and institutions closed or had restricted service. Schools have had to step up in tremendous ways this year; expanding food service to meet breakfast, lunch, and snack needs for at-home learning. Parents and students have had to shift their entire ways of living, bringing to light the many inequities in the education and food systems that may have been invisible to much of the community. All that to say, we were – and still are – tasked with managing devastating curve ball after curve ball! However, there will be fresh Rogue Valley spinach served on Earth Day. That is a win.

About the Author, Abigail Blinn: Abigail grew up in the rolling hills outside of Gettysburg, PA, having an interest in food, nutrition, and agriculture early on. She attended Penn State University, went on to pursue a dietetic internship at the University of New Hampshire, and received her Registered Dietitian Credentials. After dabbling in various focus areas of nutrition including hospitals, food banks and pantries, extension services, food service management sites, and research settings, she felt compelled to address the root cause of many nutrition-related illnesses and its relation to food security. Abigail is thrilled to contribute to regional solutions identified by Southern Oregon community members who know this local food system best. She is also an outdoor enthusiast – taking any chance she gets to climb rocks, ski mountains, and exist in the forest.