{"id":5096,"date":"2019-09-09T15:02:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T20:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-gordon-food-service.pantheonsite.io\/success-story-students-learn-about-eating-local-one-meal-time\/"},"modified":"2023-02-01T14:18:20","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T20:18:20","slug":"success-story-students-learn-about-eating-local-one-meal-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gfs.com\/en-us\/ideas\/success-story-students-learn-about-eating-local-one-meal-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Success Story: Students Learn about Eating Local, One Meal at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farm-to-table and eating local are not just for restaurants. In Central Ohio, school districts are getting in on the act with Ohio Days\u2014a program that fills lunch plates with Ohio food once a month, teaching students about food sourcing and sustainability.<\/p>\n

Once a month at Bexley City Schools and neighboring Columbus City Schools, the foodservice programs prepare a meal in which everything is sourced from Ohio farmers or suppliers. It\u2019s a plan that grew from a desire to show students the connection between the food they eat and the people who grow, manufacture, sell and bring it to their schools.<\/p>\n

Simple idea, big challenge<\/h3>\n

Feeding thousands of students every day is giant feat to start with. Sourcing all that food locally complicates matters. \u201cThe milk is easy, because there\u2019s always been a local dairy or milk product from Ohio,\u201d says Bexley Foodservice Director Julianna Carvi.<\/p>\n

For other meal items, she had to establish some definitions. For practical reasons, a purposefully loose definition was adopted: items grown, raised or processed in Ohio. This allows products from outside the state that are processed in Ohio to count toward the program.<\/p>\n

Not only do food items have to meet the \u201clocal\u201d definition, they also must fall within school lunch requirements. There must be a fruit, a vegetable, milk, a grain that\u2019s whole-grain rich, and a meat\/meat alternate.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our first meals was a chicken taco salad, using tortillas from a Columbus manufacturer, chicken from a Fremont, Ohio farm, cheese from a nearby dairy and vegetables from Granville, Ohio.<\/p>\n

Getting help from NearBuy<\/h3>\n

To make the sourcing easier, Carvi calls on the Gordon Food Service NearBuy program. It provides a list of suppliers, manufacturers and growers by state so people creating meals know which products meet the criteria for local. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a cheese calzone we got last year from a manufacturer in Sidney, Ohio, and I wouldn\u2019t have known about them without the NearBuy<\/a> report,\u201d Carvi says. \u201cI could go through it  line-by-line and find things that fit as local products.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the reward has been tapping into a \u201clocal is better\u201d feeling. Carvi says older students think it\u2019s cool to eat local, the teaching staff is on board, and her kitchen staff likes the creativity involved. In October, her team prepared roasted butternut squash. And while peeling and cutting the squash was a chore, they landed on a pleasant surprise. \u201cWe ran out of our Garlic Parmesan Roasted Butternut Squash,\u201d Carvi recalls. \u201cThe kids were coming back and saying, \u2018This has to be on the regular menu, please make it again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding a path to success<\/h3>\n

Success wouldn\u2019t have been possible without a lot of support from Carvi\u2019s district and others. She credits Joe Brown, Director of Foodservice at Columbus City Schools, for starting a local program for his district\u2019s 50,000 students. \u201cWe\u2019ll take credit for starting Ohio Days here locally, but we didn\u2019t create the idea–we stole it from other places already doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s brainchild was picked up by Bexley and Upper Arlington City Schools. It also gets educational support from Franklin County Public Health. For example, if an Ohio Days menu includes apples, they supply a packet with apple facts, nutrition information and even stickers for teachers to use in classrooms and build excitement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve tried a lot of different things, but Ohio Days is the first one that everyone fully supported and wanted to help succeed,\u201d Brown says. \u201cIt\u2019s good for the students, good for the community, good for the district\u2014there\u2019s really no downside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learning the best way to start<\/h3>\n

Over time, patterns emerge and it\u2019s clear what foods will work. Choosing a local food just because it\u2019s local can be a mistake. \u201cSauerkraut may be locally available, but if kids won\u2019t eat it, it\u2019s not food \u2026 it\u2019s waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the program is still in its early stages and Carvi admits she\u2019s still learning, her advice to other foodservice directors is to start small. \u201cIf you can\u2019t commit to one day a month, start slower,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe one day a year or one day a semester. You could even commit to changing one item to a local product and adding others later.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ohio Days program opens the door to promoting sustainable eating and kitchen creativity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":5097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culinary-ideas","category-k12-education"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSuccess Story: Students Learn about Eating Local<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gfs.com\/en-us\/ideas\/success-story-students-learn-about-eating-local-one-meal-time\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Success Story: Students Learn about 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