Serving Scratch-Cooked Inspiration: Fallbrook's "Renegade Breakthrough"

On a recent morning at Fallbrook Union High School in Southern California, three varsity football players stepped up to the breakfast line. They stood there for a full minute, looking back and forth at the three hot, scratch-made options on display. Finally, one broke the silence: “I don’t know what I should choose; everything looks so good."

Their solution? They each ordered a different entree and shared so everyone could taste it all.

Why This Matters Right Now

In Fallbrook Union High School District, approximately 70% of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Cafeteria meals aren't a snack — for hundreds of teenagers, they are the primary source of daily nourishment. High schoolers deserve meals that give them energy, help them learn, and thrive in and out of the classroom.

• Cooking from raw: The team moved away from pre-cooked commodity chicken strips to cooking fresh, raw chicken in-house for dishes like chicken tinga and scratch alfredo. Today, roughly 90% of their proteins are cooked from raw.
• Retiring ultraprocessed items: They permanently removed high-sugar items like packaged Uncrustables to make room for wholesome alternatives.
• Upping variety: Despite serving 2,400–2,600 meals a day across nine campuses, the team now offers up to 20 scratch-prepared breakfast and lunch choices daily.

How We Served as the Springboard

Behind every kitchen hero is a dedicated support system. In 2024, Fallbrook partnered with the Chef Ann Foundation as a Healthy School Food Pathway host district to invest directly in its people. Through our workforce development initiatives, 20 food service workers and community members completed the Pre-Apprenticeship program, with eight advancing to graduate from the full Apprenticeship.

Our operations team also worked on-site to test recipes like Shrimp & Mango Ceviche and Salmon Poke Bowls, while partnering with lead cook Veronica Bernal to pilot a new California-grown Cream Co. beef cut designed for scratch-cooked birria.

Real Food Is Happening Today

When school food teams receive culinary training and operational backing, they don’t just warm up factory-made food — they build thriving, scratch-cooked meal programs within the current food system. Fallbrook proves that real food in schools is happening right now.