This is great news. When Chicago wanted to change their school lunches they thought it would cost more, but when they got the bids in they were able to deliver better food FOR THE SAME COST, from the same vendors they are using now. They are also increasing the amount of local fresh fruit and veg.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/mag/article.pl?articleId=33467
Q&A: The challenge of making Chicago's school lunches greener
Louise Esaian, right, is overseeing Chicago Public Schools' transition to higher nutritional standards.
In April, the Chicago Board of Education adopted new nutritional standards that make Chicago the first major school district in the country to try to surpass the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "gold standard" guidelines for school food. The district's 417,855 students, in 675 schools, will get more whole grains, fiber, legumes and dark green and orange vegetables, and less sodium and sugar. Locally grown produce gets a big push, too, something other Illinois school districts are assessing in light of the Local Food, Farms and Jobs Act of 2009, which aims to build a local-foods economy. Louise Esaian, 50, logistics officer at Chicago Public Schools, is overseeing the transition, which will start with the district's new food-service contract in June and ramp up come fall. We asked her for details, and what she thought of "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution."
CRAIN'S: Why did CPS make these changes?
MS. ESAIAN: This journey began several years ago, when we made improvements like planning meals with zero trans fats, prohibiting the use of deep fryers, offering fresh fruit daily and eliminating whole milk. As a continuation of that, we convened a committee in fall 2009 to assess what we'd like our nutrition standards to look like in the future. The Institute of Medicine had recently released new guidelines for school breakfast and lunch programs. Later, the first lady announced her Let's Move! campaign, which included the USDA's gold-standard challenge. The timing couldn't have been more perfect.
How much will the changes cost?
We had anticipated that the cost was going to increase by about $3 million a year. But when we received the bids for our food service, it was cost-neutral. Next year we'll spend approximately $101 million on food. That includes $10 million in USDA commodities, so that's a $91-million budget projected for 2010-11.
Why wasn't there a cost increase?
CPS issued a comprehensive request for proposals, and that helped. But the winning bid came from the same vendor we had last year, Chartwells-Thompson Hospitality, and Chartwells shared with me that they recognize the financial constraints that the district is under. So in putting together a bid, they worked very hard to keep costs down. One thing that helped is Chartwells was using a national distribution company to deliver food to all the schools. Now they're working with small local firms. About a third of our schools — ones that don't have equipment to cook on-site — are served by another vendor, Preferred Meal Systems, and that cost didn't go up, either.
How are you using local foods in the schools?
For the 2009-10 school year, we bought $1.8 million worth of local fruits and vegetables through the FamilyFarmed network, and that will increase for 2010-11. This was a new initiative for us that started with a small pilot in 2008-09 and grew out of our desire to incorporate more fresh produce into our program. Because of the Midwest's short growing season, we decided to look at freezing foods — harvesting things like corn, peas, beans, carrots, squash and berries at their prime and then flash-freezing them to preserve nutrients. We also use fresh items including apples, peaches, plums, potatoes and sweet potatoes. And starting in the fall, we'll also be getting dark leafy greens from local farmers.
In March, a group of CPS high school students got national headlines when they spoke at a Board of Education meeting against the quality of school food. How did that affect the board's decision to adopt the new nutritional standards?
Our nutritional standards were approved in December, previous to any students speaking out. The Board of Education just didn't officially adopt them until April. But we're working with students throughout the district to develop the new menus. We have nine schools where we've introduced the new recipes and gathered feedback. I'd say over 85% of the responses have been extremely positive.
School food has gotten a lot of high-profile attention lately because of ABC's "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" and an Illinois teacher blogging anonymously as Mrs. Q (http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/). What do you think of these efforts?
I didn't watch the Jamie Oliver show. It just wasn't in my schedule. I did read Mrs. Q when she first started, though not since. But whatever it is, it's good because it starts conversations. And I hope that translates into increased attention and increased funding, because that's what the program needs.
©2010 by Crain Communications Inc.
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