This year D.C. Public Schools hired out two pilot food projects, one to Revolution Foods, the other to D.C. Central Kitchen, to initiate a little competition with Chartwells, the company that acts as food service manager to most of the schools in the system. So far, school officials have kept the pilot projects under tight wraps. But here we have a photograph of the Revolution Foods lunch served today, snapped by a parent.
Here's this parent's description of the meal:
"[My daughter] waited in a very short line and was served a surprisingly delicious looking meal. She had roast chicken in a light, tasty sauce, roasted red potatoes with a touch of melted cheese, and collard greens, which were good, but slightly dry, fresh fruit (choice of apple or orange), with whole grain crackers, (that she couldn't eat because of the gluten) and milk (that she can't drink cause of dairy) - all-in-all, an excellent school lunch."
The Revolution Foods menu on the school website described the meal as "all natural BBQ chicken with cheesy potatoes with seasonal vegetables and fresh fruit." The vegetarian alternate appeared to be "garden vegetable bean soup with Milton's crackers and fresh fruit."
The contract structure with Revolution Foods and D.C. Central Kitchen are somewhat different than the contract the schools have with Chartwells. The contract with Chartwells is "cost-reimbursable," meaning Chartwells charges an annual administrative fee ($1 million) plus a fee for each meal it serves, and bills the schools for all its expenses. Revolution Foods and D.C. Central Kitchen are paid a set price for each meal, regardless of their expenses.
Several months ago I came across a short documentary featuring Rome, Italy’s incredibly progressive school food program. I was impressed by what I learned from the documentary and hungry to learn more. Fortunately, I had already planned a trip to visit some family in Rome, so I pursued an interview with Paolo Agnostini, the Head Nutritionist for the Municipality of Rome and a key player in the transformation of their school food program.
In the weeks before our meeting, Mr. Agnostini provided me with the program’s facts and figures, caterer and vendor contract guidelines and the overarching goals and ideals that brought this program to life. First the facts:
- 150,000 total meals daily
- 740 public schools
- 96% from-scratch meals/4% portable meals
- €5.03 ($6.56) average cost of a school meal (includes a complete lunch and a
snack)
- 70% of the ingredients are organic (The switch to using organic food incurred a €0.16 food cost increase.)
- €5.03 includes all food ingredients, labor and system monitoring costs but not tax.
- The food service programs are managed by private catering companies contracted by the municipality.
- Two independent companies are contracted by the municipality to monitor the ingredients and operations in the schools.
Although I did not obtain a percentage of locally procured products, I did learn a great deal about how local foods were prioritized in the program. When reviewing bids from food providers, points were given to those contractors that could best guarantee the use of the following:
A Bio-dedicated food chain: “foods that were organically grown coming from farm businesses working exclusively in organic food-chains.”
Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) & Protected Geographic Indication (PGI) products: food products that are typical of the Lazio Region in which Rome is located. These included Mozzarella di bufala PDO (buffalo milk mozzarella-cheese), Pecorino Romano PDO (sheep cheese), Ricotta Romana PDO, Beef PGI (slow growing old breeds: Chianina, Marchigiana, Romagnola.)
Guaranteed freshness produce: meaning no more than 3 days between harvest and intake. Companies are required to state the name of the harvesting farm, the harvesting date and the name of any food-processing center on the produce package.
Meat freshness: Meats must be vacuumed packed and delivered with 4 days of packaging.
In order to further support the ideal of using locally grown produce the Municipality utilized the following two principals in the menu and recipe development:
Seasonality: All menu items must only include ingredients that are harvested in Lazio during that specific time period.
Recipe Variety: Two 9-week menu cycles were created, one for the winter and one for the spring. Teams of professional chefs and dieticians were hired by the city and charged with creating seasonal and student-approved menus. A total of 160 recipes were developed and implemented. Schools varied their starting point in the menu cycles to allow for sufficient supplies of produce. (Agnostini called the recipe development process “key to the program’s success.” He also said that dissemination of the recipes to all schools had been unnecessarily difficult and, in retrospect, should have been more organized and efficient.)
The precise and stringent nature of these requirements is indicative of the strong ideals that shaped Rome’s school meal program. The main goals of the program were to:
Upgrade food quality
Ensure food safety
Provide nutrient balance
Combat childhood obesity
Develop sustainable production
Regulate public contracts
The €5 a day that it takes Rome to accomplish these goals is significantly more than what is being invested here in the U.S. However, this quote that underscores the list of goals explains how Romans have justified this expenditure. “The principle of cheapness must be subordinated to criteria inspired by social requirements, as well as by healthcare, environmental conservation and sustainable development.” In support of this statement Agnostini also said during our meeting, “It is more money to cure people for nutrition related diseases than to prevent them.”
While those of us advocating for improved school food fervently share this belief, unfortunately, there are many people who do not consider nutrition a major priority. I know this lack of concern and resistance firsthand; therefore, I was very curious how Rome managed to overcome the naysayers.
Mr. Agnostini agreed with me that effective change in school cafeterias only happens with a community effort. The Municipality knew that competitive foods would threaten the success of their program. To combat this they banned ALL outside food from the school buildings. This extended to parents not being allowed to send their children with lunches or snacks from home. This was a bold move to take and it was not entirely well received. Some parents loudly protested this mandate. However, Agnostini said, “They were not the majority. We held to our rule.” It was not until the European Union publicly recognized and praised Rome for its efforts that the protest noise quieted.
Having read about the nutrition education initiatives that Rome implemented, I wanted to know how teachers had responded to the changes. Agnostini said, “Children must know where food comes from. It is best to cultivate or cook but this is not always possible. So they must learn and understand through lessons. Teachers need to be motivated. Most will not be by the idea that eating well is important but by money or ease of operations.” Opting for the latter, Rome aided teachers in incorporating nutrition education lessons by providing them with materials, activities, and tools. (This is precisely what I have done with the Veggiecation program.)
Agnostini continued to stress the importance of teacher involvement and support when making school food changes. He said, “More important than the children’s reaction was the teacher’s reaction. Students listen and respond to how teachers react to foods.” He gave me a few anecdotes about how if teachers said they did not like something, the children would not eat it. One vegetable in particular had to be eliminated from the program because despite the students initially enjoying it at lunch, teacher’s balked at the smell it emitted when it cooked was.
Towards the end of our time together I asked Mr. Agnostini what he envisioned for the future of Rome’s school meal program. His response surprised me and slightly disheartened me. He informed me that the political tides had changed within the Municipality. The party that had initiated the city’s school food revolution was no longer in power and the current administration did not value sustainable food development in the same way. He said because of this he was concerned there might a regression due to reallocation of funds and a change in priorities. What a shame it would be for this to happen. Politics created the problem of poor school nutrition and then politicians worked to fix it. How unfortunate it would be have this cycle repeat itself .
. .
Lastly, I asked him to share any advice to those of us in the U.S. advocating for school food change. He simply said, “It will be difficult but you must keep walking forward.”
Lisa Suriano caters school meals and is the developer of the curriculum-based lunch program Veggication.
I wonder if anyone else attending the "food services roundtable" this week at D.C. Public Schools headquarters was struck by food services director Jeffrey Mills' comment that he and his crew have recently taste-tested some 300 different "food products" for the upcoming school year.
Mills said he personally had tasted "30 different chicken products," in the effort to improve school meals.
"Food products"? "Chicken products"?
The emphasis seems to be on "products" rather than fresh food. And that's one of the problems schools face when their idea of serving children revolves around hiring a giant food services contractor--in this case Chartwells--whose method of producing meals involves reheating industrially processed convenience foods. Or should we say "products"?
D.C. schools under Chancellor Michelle Rhee have determined that cooking is not a "core competency" of schools and so have farmed out the job to Chartwells. This year they are introducing two pilot programs--14 schools to be served meals either from Revolution Foods or D.C. Central Kitchen--to create a little competition and light a fire under Chartwells.
Still, the problem remains: how do you get fresh produce into the meals if no one in the kitchen is trained to handle it, or doesn't have the equipment?
As well as being pressed by healthy food and farm to school advocates, Mills has a financial incentive to put some sort of locally grown food on every cafeteria tray. The "Healthy Schools Act"passed earlier this year by the D.C. Council offers a five-cent bonus for each school meal that contains a locally grown component.
That wouldn't be hard at all if D.C. schools had salad bars. But D.C. schools don't have salad bars. They could put it in the soup. But D.C. schools don't make or serve soup. They could put local vegetables in the the pasta sauce. But D.C. schools don't make their own pasta sauce. It comes out of a can. Does that mean replacing cooked-to-death broccoli from Mexico or California with local cooked-to-death broccoli?
Mills remarked that "there's a ton of local produce around us" here in the District of Columbia. He said one local distributor, Keany Produce, has assured him it can deliver all the local produce D.C. schools might require. But as far as actually using that produce in school kitchens: "Hopefully as years go on, we can improve the skills of our kitchen workers and upgrade our kitchens."
Years? Is there a plan we don't know about?
Anthony Tata, chief operating officer for the schools, seems perfectly content to rely on vendors. When asked whether D.C. schools might ever emulate other schools districts who "self operate" their food service and cook with raw products, he said it's all about "good contract management." "I can't predict the future," Tata said, "but we will make decisions to bring the most nutritious food to our kids. We think we've found the sweet spot of what we're driving toward. We'll be ruthless in holding [vendors] accountable."
Meanwhile, other school districts around the country are doing everything they can to train their own cooks and upgrade their kitchens in order to prepare meals more economically from scratch using fresh produce and other raw ingredients. Here's a report that aired last night on PBS Newshour, describing how schools in Colorado are using federal stimulus funds to conduct "culinary boot camps" to train their own cooks.
If improving school food were simply a matter of writing better contracts for meal purveyors, everybody would be doing it, no?
D.C. Public Schools got some rosy press recently when they announced two pilot programs that would be serving meals vastly upgraded from the industrially processed convenience foods kids are eating now. Each program would feed seven of the city's public schools, one with "portable" or catered meals, the other with food made from scratch.
The food requirements are state of the art: hormone- and antibiotic-free milk, no high-fructose corn syrup or artificial preservatives, colors or flavors, no canned fruit in syrup, no trans fats, beef no more than four times per month. The meals must meet proposed Institute of Medicine standards, meaning minimum and maximum calorie limits along with increased portions of orange and leafy green vegetables. And 20 percent of all produce must come from local sources.
And all of this is supposed to be provided at or near the current levels of federal reimbursement for school meals, meaning around $1.70 for breakfast and $2.70 for lunch. (Recently enacted "Healthy Schools" legislation provides a bit more: an extra 10 cents for breakfast and for lunch, and a five-cent bonus for meals that contain local produce.)
Sounds like a tall order. The deadline for food service companies to submit their proposals was June 1. And that's to begin meal service when school resumes later in August. As far as we know, the proposals are still under review, so the process is wrapped in secrecy. But we'll be looking at these two pilot programs in more detail in the coming days, and hopefully have even more to share when the winning bids are announced.
Better D.C. School Food is the official blog of Parents for Better D.C. School Food. We advocate replacing highly processed, sugary foods with wholesome, nutritious food in District of Columbia public schools to promote the health and well-being of all children. We partner with the D.C. Farm to School Network to promote the use of sustainably grown local farm goods in school meals.
Posts
