Building the School Food Workforce in Virginia and New York

We’re excited to announce the recent expansion of our school food workforce development program to Virginia and New York. 

Healthy School Food Pathway provides beginning and experienced school food professionals with the hands-on training and in-depth learning they need to prepare fresher, healthier meals for kids. The program also offers a mission-driven culinary career pathway in school food.

Since the program launched in California in 2022, and has since expanded to other states, it’s provided training to more than 2,000 school food professionals to date through Pre-Apprenticeship, Apprenticeship, and Fellowship opportunities.  

Virginia and New York join Colorado as the latest states to host this program, with other states planning to launch iterations of the program in the coming years. Each state’s program is designed collaboratively with a diverse coalition of state-based stakeholders, ensuring the program caters to the unique needs of their state. 

Virginia 

Before launching Healthy School Food Pathway in Virginia, we worked closely with dozens of school divisions (school districts) in the state to increase scratch cooking, prioritize purchasing local foods, and provide student-inspired meals. 

New York

New York has demonstrated its commitment to improving access to and the quality of school meals by passing universal free meals and its initiative to incentivize schools to purchase more food from local farmers. Bringing Healthy School Food Pathway to the state will help ensure that New York’s school food workforce is equipped to serve students healthier meals made with whole ingredients.

Plus, partnerships forged and insights gleaned from our work with New York’s Tompkins County through its School Food Reboot program further laid the groundwork for launching the workforce development program in the state.

We’re excited to continue working with more districts and individuals who are committed to improving the quality of school meals through healthier, scratch-cooked food. School food professionals are at the heart of this transformation. When we invest in the professionals preparing nourishing school meals, we’re investing in students and their futures. 

We’re grateful to our partners in Virginia and New York for joining us in this critical mission. Learn more about our Healthy School Food Pathway program here.