WINDSOR — Institutional cooking in public schools and colleges has come a long way in the last few decades.
With today’s improved nutritional guidelines and heightened awareness about unhealthy sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods, there is a greater emphasis on the quality, freshness and ingredients of the food being served at institutions. School districts in particular — including Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union — are aiming providing healthier fare and looking to local sources as much as possible while instilling in students good nutritional habits they can carry on later in life.
At the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union, which includes schools in Windsor, Hartland, Weathersfield and West Windsor, Food Service Director Ian Rose applies many of the same rules he has as a consumer when buying food for the district.
“I don’t buy anything without reading the ingredients,” said Rose, now in his second year with the supervisory union. “That is how I shop in the grocery store and how we do things here. We want to get rid of prepackaged, heavily-processed items in favor of making things here.”
The food program’s budget is $285,000 a year costs are steadily increasing year after year, he added.
Several school district have chosen outside food service companies to provide meals, but the Windsor supervisory union operates its own food service. A staff of 14 serves 1,100 students breakfast and lunch each day. They also provides after-school snacks to children. This year, the supervisory union launched a fresh fruit and vegetable program to provide healthy snacks to students throughout the day, Rose said.
“It has been a massive success,” Rose said. “Kids are eating fruits and vegetables at a rate I don’t think anyone thought they would. They are inclined to go towards those things as opposed to a packet of Goldfish.”
Whole foods, fruits and vegetables and making food from scratch in their own kitchen are a big part of the district’s food service focus. As one example, Rose said they make muffins using their own muffin mix as opposed to buying ones already in plastic packaging.
“There is a greater cost to that but the value is immeasurable beyond something you get with lots of processing, bad oils and plastics,” Rose said, adding that cutting down on using plastic is another goal of the program.
Rose came to WSESU from a long career in food service, including opening restaurants. He described his first year as a learning period as his team worked on setting goals, which primarily was aimed at sourcing foods regionally and using as many whole foods as possible.
“A huge part of my job is procurement,” Rose said. “I love hunting for deals.”
Rose earlier this year bought a bunch of potatoes from an organic Vermont farmer that were labeled as “seconds,” because of their appearance.
“There was nothing wrong with them and we are going to cut them up anyway,” Rose said. “It being smart with your purchases. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
Making as many items in their kitchen does require more time to manage and craft the menu while also using better ingredients.
“That is the game,” Rose said. “It is not exactly a high wire act but takes some experimenting to find that right balance.”
There are some items that do come in a box, but Rose looks to pair that with something made by hand such as red roasted Vermont potatoes. Even the kids’ favorite — macaroni and cheese — does not come from a box in the school district’s lunchrooms. Rose said they make it in their kitchens using whole grain pasta and as many regionally sourced items including flour and cheese as possible.
Emily Paquette, kitchen manager at the Hartland Elementary School, said the macaroni and cheese, spaghetti and meatballs and Caesar salad they make from their own recipes are very popular with the students. Just as popular are the fresh fruit and vegetable offerings between breakfast and lunch that are stocked in a refrigerator in a hallway.
“I think having kids see local, fresh stuff is good for them. They like to have choices and are willing to try something if their friends try it,” Paquette said. “We have a lot more options here than many schools and really push buying local.”
Heathery Gokey, lead cook at the Weathersfield School in Ascutney, has been with the district for nine years.
Gokey said the biggest change she has seen was when the district decided seven years ago to switch to an in-house, independent food service, rather than from an outside company. The change has led to more options, such as five different sandwiches one day along with macaroni and cheese and a full salad bar, Gokey said.
“It has allowed us to better cater to the kids and what they want,” Gokey said. “We have more local products and produce and can emphasize minimum ingredients and making stuff from scratch and not as much processed stuff from a box.”
School meal programs have assistance from associations, including the School Nutrition Association, a nationwide organization with state chapters, works with its members from schools around the state. Vermont and New Hampshire both have chapters.
“We have training opportunities and try to showcase what school nutrition professionals do in their day-to-day working,” said Lauren Crowley, who is with the Litchfield, N.H. school district and is president of New Hampshire School Nutrition Association, which is commonly referred to as SNA. “There is an advocacy piece to it and networking opportunities. It is a way for us in New Hampshire to get together and network to share ideas on what districts in New Hampshire are dealing with.”
A lot depends on the needs of the individual districts when it comes to SNA’s assistance.
Crowley said they might provide help with farm-to-school programs or information on making more items from scratch in school kitchens.
“At SNA we try to provide an almost blanket type training,” Crowley said. “When we hear back from members, we can then dive into specific items. It really depends on each school’s niche.”
At the last SNA conference last August, there was a focus on marketing programs to the public that promote healthy nutrition or working with vendors offering cooking demonstrations and pushing more locally sourced food through farm-to-school. There are also challenges around the nutrition requirements of the national school lunch program, Crowley said. There are limits on sodium, saturated fats, added sugars as well as required minimum servings of fruits, vegetables, meat and grains.
“You have strict guidelines that you have to follow which doesn’t allow for a lot of flexibility,” she said. “There are also funding challenges and a lot of (school lunch) programs do not end (the year) with a positive balance because the federal reimbursement rate is very low.”
Since 2023, Vermont has had universal free breakfast and lunch in all public schools and it leads the nations in the number of school districts involved in farm-to-school initiative with more than 90% participation.
Rose agrees that many adults would look at today’s offerings in school cafeterias and remark how that is not how they remember school lunch.
“It has evolved quite a bit,” Rose said. “It has normalized this idea that eating whole foods and raw, unprocessed fruits and vegetables is part of everyday life. The more we have people eating these things the more we are going to be healthier longer in life.”
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.