The Power of Local Purchasing

We also saw shortages of romaine, which we use as dark leafy green quite often, and a lack of the variety and quality in other commercial produce, so I found local sources to mitigate this. I was able to get local dark leafy greens from Project Grows, local chicken and beef from 4P Foods with Local Food Hub, and a variety of fruits and veggies from other local sources. We featured four of The Lunch Box recipes with our local goods and all of it was a hit. Chicken Burrito, Kung Pao Chicken, Beef and Broccoli and Penne with meat sauce (where we subbed a local scratch pasta instead of penne).
 

Napa Valley Unified School District NOSH

Kristen Tekell, Food Service Director

We are buying local bulk ground beef and burgers from Marin Sun’s Mindful Meat program. We continue to buy produce from Pac Rim and Ag Link, who often sources California grown items. We also purchase local tortilla products from Mi Rancho, a CA company, and our dairy products come from Clover in Sonoma County, CA.

Boulder Valley School District

Carolyn Villa, Food Service District Manager

Of course, we purchase a lot of local produce and we’re trying to expand our local meat. It’s been reliable for the most part, though the local farms and processors are also struggling with a labor shortage, so there have been some close calls where the food almost didn’t get to us in time. That said, they’ve been more reliable than our “big” vendors this year. We’re purchasing our Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program produce from a farm just down the road this year because we had some quality issues and procurement issues with our national produce company. We also switched to local beans for our pinto beans. We’re also looking at some smaller companies, though not all are local.

San Luis Coastal Unified School District

Erin Primer, Director of Food & Nutrition Services

We purchased blocks of local cheese during our weekly pantry box program. Now that students are back on campus, we order wheels of this delicious local Cal Poly cheese, slice it in house, and make these local cheese plates (with whole grain flatbread and local produce). For nacho day, we tried to source an individually wrapped/portioned chip, but those were out of stock. The local option came through, at the last minute, and made it super easy to get us what we needed. They saved nacho day!

My last share is a funky and cool new local find: Finger Limes (or lime pearls, citriburst, lime caviar, I’m sure there are more names)! These are locally grown by a family in our district (who has a farm) and provide an exceptionally fun food experience for kids. We tasted them as part of a “freaky fruit tasting” to celebrate National Farm to School Month and Halloween. Kids LOVED them- they are like nature’s sour patch kid- tart, bright, a pop of limey fun! It’s been fun to connect with what we can find locally!

Ocean View School District

Vanessa Zajfen, Director of Food & Nutrition Services

Like all school districts across the United States, Ocean View School District in Ventura County, California is experiencing challenges due to supply chain disruptions brought on by COVID-19. While a much beloved menu item, the cheeseburger, went missing on menus at school districts across Ventura County, OVSD Food & Nutrition Services didn’t even notice. That is because in the school year 2021-2022, OVSD began sourcing and serving 1/4 pound raw grass fed hamburger patties from a local ranch and butcher shop operation in Ojai, CA called Watkins Cattle Company. Watkins grazes cattle on over 400 acres in Ventura County and processes primal cuts of meat by hand at their butcher shop in Ojai. OVSD worked with the team at Watkins to develop a 1/4 pound raw burger patty and pack it just for OVSD. 50 patties come in a case, the raw patties are frozen at Watkins with paper between each patty and delivered two days before service at OVSD.