Farm to school in local-motion

The MNSA partners with IATP, U of M to formalize a statewide, local sourcing initiative.

By Mike Mitchelson

There will be several topics discussed at the Minnesota School Nutrition Association annual conference this month, but arguably the most important will be the presentation on a statewide Farm To School school lunch initiative.

The MSNA partnered with the Twin Cities-based International Agriculture and Trade Policy Association in the summer of 2008 to determine how a “start-up” local-foods purchasing program could be developed for school districts statewide to join pioneering districts such as Willmar and St. Paul. “The IATP wanted to work with MSNA because that’s the affiliation of school foodservice professionals who really determine what happens in the cafeteria,” said JoAnne Berkenkamp, local foods program director for the IATP.

“It was a natural fit to partner with the IATP,” said Mary Anderson, Culinary Express director for Wayzata Schools and incoming MSNA president.

The partnership resulted first in a survey last fall of 350 school foodservice directors to determine the interest level. “We’re finding out through the directors that they really want the program to go forward,” Anderson said. “And what we want to do is let the directors know that this is not a difficult thing to do, and there are many ways to do it. JoAnne and IATP have been very instrumental in guiding us through this process.”

Survey questions were also used to determine how best to make such programs successful. “For instance, there’s clearly a need for training of school foodservice staff about understanding seasonality and how to work seasonal product into the menus,” Berkenkamp said. “So there’s a … strategy that’s really been started this spring and will continue throughout the upcoming school year.”

Also being developed are promotional materials for school districts to adopt for their farm-to-school program. “One of the barriers we found is that individual schools and districts just don’t have the capacity to start from scratch with promotional strategies that help people see what’s going on with Farm to School,” Berkenkamp said.

A program logo is being developed, and a variety of promotional “templates” a district can use for its Web site, in its classrooms and cafeteria, and to communicate with the media. “We’re (also) developing a library of support materials—videos, essentially—that can be used in the classroom to reinforce some of these messages around how food is grown, why that’s important and how kids can interact with our food system,” Berkenkamp said.

Joining the partnership is the University of Minnesota, which has developed a Web site (www.mn-farmtoschool.umn.edu) for school districts to gain information, marketing and promotional materials, and recipes already in use at the Willmar School District. Willmar has been using several locally grown products—including bison and whole grains—during a three-year pilot program.

Distribution solution

Finding local producers is a time-consuming venture, as many restaurateurs with seasonal menus can attest. It’s time that the foodservice directors often don’t have. Further, schools are often limited when it comes to processing food. Few—if any—districts have the budget or staff to sort, chop and manage other prep duties.

The solution is to let the distributor do the work. Each distributor varies, of course. “JoAnne and I spent quite a bit of time talking to distributors through conference calls, basically bringing them up to speed so they know where the interest level was and the next steps in the process,” Anderson said.

St. Paul-based Bix Produce works with about 30 Minnesota school districts, and brings in as much local produce as possible. “We buy as much as we can from the region when product is available and we alert our customers weekly,” said Duane Pfleiger, Bix vice president. “We (also) provide them information on the farmers that we’re buying it from.”

Bix clients can then use that information in their own promotional materials.

Specific to school districts wanting local produce, Bix provides an “availability chart,” which in itself indicates the difficulty of buying local for area schools. “The problem with the schools is, when they start to come on board, the varieties and supplies are very limited,” Pfleiger said. “You get into September in Minnesota, and you’re getting down there, running at the end of green beans, corn is pretty well done, and you’re getting into hard squashes and those type of things that aren’t great items that kids enjoy. But you’ve still got carrots, radishes and other things.”

One option to extend the season is freezing vegetables, as Chicago school districts are discussing with processors in their area. That idea came up in a conference call with Berkenkamp, Pfleiger said. While Bix is a large processor, it would be a “major investment” to purchase additional equipment to package frozen produce. “It’s not something that is in the works,” he said. “It’s being discussed.”

As a large distributor and processor, however, Bix is able to provide school districts with the prepped produce and vegetable blends to develop Farm to School programs.

Wayzata Schools uses Bix, but Anderson said that a dialogue with whatever distributor a district uses is the easiest way to start using local products. “They’ve already got the contacts, the farmers are already set up, they’ve gone through an approval process,” she said. “So it’s just a matter of coordinating it, and being able to estimate and forecast what you’re going to be eating.”

Among the items Wayzata will use this year is Minnesota sweet corn in September. “And traditionally, we have apples—a lot of districts do that,” Anderson said. “We’re also going to do beets, squash, parsnips, red potato, and vegetable mixes, roasting those in a little olive oil with some herbs.”

There is also a push to use grains, she added. “It’s limited to your imagination, and the willingness to take some time and effort and make it work,” she said.

The Farm-to-School program will be “ever-evolving.” “We have an agricultural economy in our state, and it really is, I think, for the districts, the right thing to be doing,” Anderson said. With anything new, there’s going to be challenges. But if we can help anticipate those challenges for the districts, that’s very helpful. They need to know they aren’t doing this by themselves and there is a lot of good resources around.”