Getting Local Food into Arizona Schools

Every day millions of people nationwide eat meals outside of their home in places – or institutions – such as schools, universities, hospitals, correctional facilities, senior care facilities, and government agencies. Public and private institutions spend billions of dollars on food purchases each year to provide those meals. Each one of these institutions represents an opportunity for U.S. farmers and ranchers to gain access to large markets which can greatly impact their income and livelihood, as well as connect them to their local communities by providing nutritious, fresh food. 

Institutional food procurement, or sourcing the food for institutional market channels like schools, holds more power to benefit farmers than any other local food market.

Why Connecting Arizona Schools with Local Food Matters 

Bringing local farm food into Arizona schools that participate in federal child nutrition programs, such as the National School Lunch Program, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, and the School Breakfast Program, hold the potential to radically change the way that food is served in schools. 

In 2019, total expenditures on federal child nutrition programs amounted to $23.6 billion, much of which was spent on the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP). In fiscal year 2020, the NSLP provided about 3.2 billion meals to children throughout the nation. The majority of food provided for child nutrition programs is ultra-processed and sourced through big food companies like Tyson and PepsiCo, who benefit the most from these federally-funded food programs. Even if a small percentage of the food that is procured for federal child nutrition programs is shifted to local farmers, that impact could significantly benefit local farmers and also the quality of the food that is served in school meals. 

Photo credit: Sun Produce Co-op

While some schools have adopted healthier meal options, pizza sauce and french fries still count as vegetables for schoolchildren in the United States, and ultra-processed products are commonly found on school trays. The childhood obesity rate has tripled since the 1970s and over 30 million children get their lunch from a government-funded program each year. What is served on lunch trays directly affects the health and life-long eating habits of adolescents. By providing access to healthy meals, schools can be a place where children receive exposure to nutritious foods and healthy eating habits. 

Serving local food, coupled with food education, is an effective way to teach children where food comes from and also get them to eat it. Farm to school programs not only increase kids’ access to fresh fruits and vegetables, but research shows that children are more likely to eat those fruits and vegetables when they learn where it came from, or when they are directly involved with growing them. 

Significant challenges exist in getting local food into schools, but entering the institutional market provides an opportunity to feed children healthy food on a large-scale while supporting local producers and growers. And many people, organizations, and farmers within Arizona (and the U.S.) are committed to making it happen. 

The Arizona Farm to School Network

The Arizona Farm to School Network is a state-wide hub of connections, research, and resources that are gathered and shared to support all communities working to implement and sustain farm to school programming. Farm to School is a national movement that promotes the use of locally and regionally grown foods in schools, and enriches the connection communities have with fresh, healthy food and local food producers.

Raevyn Xavier, the Arizona Farm to School Network Manager, explains, “The Arizona Farm to School Network serves as a hub of information and is composed of diverse community members that are needed to move farm to school work forward. Food system work is complicated, but everyone is an eater so it impacts us all. The Network is a platform to uplift the important work that is already happening around the state, specifically in Arizona local food procurement, school gardens, and food education.”

Photo Credit: AZF2S

This past October the Arizona Farm to School Network held its annual gathering over two days, in partnership with Kroger Zero Hunger Zero Waste Foundation and Fry’s Food Stores. On day one, over 60 people attended the in-person bus field trips that showcased school gardens, farms, and food education programs around the state. For day two, nearly 150 people registered to attend the free online series of virtual educational sessions on topics like, “Weaving Nutrition into Community-wide, Holistic Learning” and “Nurturing Growth: Exploring School Garden and Outdoor Education Research in Arizona.”

While the Network is a hub of valuable farm to school resources, Raevyn also sees it playing a vital role of connecting the people who are involved with the challenging work of designing, implementing, and sustaining farm to school programming. 

“At the end of day we are human beings trying to make positive change in a challenging landscape, and connection is essential to remind us of the necessity of this work and who we are impacting. What we hear often from new members of the Network is that they feel like they are all alone. They understand the importance of what they are doing, but they feel like they are on an island. The Arizona Farm to School Network is a reminder to them that there is a community of like-minded people and they don't have to take on the battle alone. I see that as an important role of the Network– helping people connect,” she says.  

Raevyn stresses that because of the complex nature of farm to school work, there needs to be a concerted strategy and approach even when there is a growing sense of urgency to advance farm to school efforts. She notes, “We move at the pace of community, and that can be uncomfortable and challenging. The most intentional and successful work is getting comfortable with going through a process together, although it can take longer. ”

Arizona Initiatives & Organizations Working on Farm to School Projects

There is a growing movement of people, initiatives, and organizations dedicated to ensuring students have access to fresh and locally grown food and that schools and farmers have the support to make it happen. Meet some of these local and national farm to school champions. 

Sun Produce Cooperative 

Sun Produce Co-op formed in 2017 to keep small, local farmers on the land, increase access to fresh, in-season Arizona produce, and help transform the Arizona food system while creating viable alternative distribution streams for its smaller-scale producers. Cindy Gentry is the President of Sun Produce Co-op and has been a proponent of Farm to School since it came about in the 1990s to address increasing concerns of the amount of processed foods served in school meals. 

Photo credit: Sun Produce Co-op

“Getting local farm food in schools helps children learn from an early age to make healthy food choices while their palates are still open. It’s an opportunity to get kids healthy food, to teach them where their food comes from, and to help farms stay on the land and have known markets by being able to sell to schools,” Cindy explains. 

In June 2022, Sun Produce Co-op was awarded a planning grant by Vitalyst Health Foundation to create a toolkit and process that would make it easier for schools and other institutions to purchase local food. Through this grant, Sun Produce worked on addressing a common question that people interested in procuring local food have–  where to find a farmer. 

“Sun Produce is a one-stop shop to find 30-40 farmers around the state,” says Cindy. “Through this grant process we are helping to build relationships between institutional buyers– like schools–  and farmers so they get to know each other and understand each other's needs, and then they create a plan to work together.”  

Through this grant and toolkit process, Sun Produce created a simplified catalog of local produce that schools can order from, at the request of schools. Instead of having a large list of produce items to choose from or five different kinds of lettuce, the list reduces the options to a couple to make it more manageable for schools to menu and meal plan. 

Cindy notes that through this project they have also learned to start slow and that schools are facing many challenges, so buying local food may not be top of their list at this moment.

“Change is hard. School districts have had a lot of stress, especially during the last 3 years. Staff turnover is high, they are concerned with the meal reimbursements money that they are going to get, and so they can go to the catalog of broadline distributors and punch in the same things every week that will meet the USDA standards when they get audited. They have a lot of pressure to make sure kids are fed on time. So we encourage schools to start small; it doesn’t have to be that you have a local ingredient on every plate on every day,” Cindy explains. 

“Instead of figuring out what won’t work, we can work with a school if they really want to do something with farm to school,” she adds. 

Try it Local & Local Food Procurement 

The USDA's Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS) is designed to help states deal with the challenges of supply chain disruptions brought on by the pandemic. The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) is using LFS funds to launch a new campaign called Try it Local. Through Try it Local, schools participating in the National School Lunch Program or School Breakfast Program can be reimbursed for purchasing locally produced food for school meal programs from socially disadvantaged food producers and small businesses. Schools can complete this online interest form to receive one-on-one assistance or to participate in the reimbursement program.

Rachel Gomez-Acosta, the Farm to Institution Partnerships Manager with Pinnacle Prevention, coordinates with administrators of the Try It Local program. She explains, “ADE and the Try It Local program is approaching a point where it is poised to start providing support to schools interested in buying local food and looking for school partners to have those local food conversations.” 
Rachel serves as the Chair of the Arizona Farm to School Network’s Local Food in Schools Community of Practice and was also a former Food Service Director for Concordia Charter School, so she understands firsthand the challenges of procuring local food for schools. 

“My first real success with local food procurement was finding the right partner to help connect me with local producers, and to help me with the challenges of how to order, how to invoice, and how to get it delivered. It was when I met Sun Produce Co-op that served as a one-stop for farmers and also helped with delivery that procuring local food worked,” remarks Rachel.

Having specific funds allotted for schools to buy local food is an important step of making procuring local food easier, as the contiguous states reimbursement rate for free school meals is between $4.25 - $4.50 and that must cover the costs of food, labor, and other expenses. However, other challenges exist in moving towards more local food procurement in schools. 

“Many schools procure food for their school meal service through the bid process and award 100% of their food purchasing to that vendor and those contracts can last up to five years. So, even if there is money to buy locally, the schools are technically on a contractual obligation to use just that vendor, or vendors, and their hands are tied in procuring food outside of them,” Rachel explains. “If schools can leave some wiggle room where they don’t do 100% of procurement bids on contract but leave some space– like 10% of purchases– for local food purchasing, that could even make a big difference.”  

While barriers slow the progress of changing how schools procure food for their meals, Rachel believes a key to moving the needle is by developing tools and guiding principles that are adaptive, as each school has their own procurement processes and business office procedures. 

“Success to me would look like demystifying the procurement process for people that buy the food and that there are champions in enough or many districts that care and see the importance of introducing a component of farm to school in their schools and are willing to work to build the relationships to make that happen,” shares Rachel.

Blue Watermelon Project, the Chef Ann Foundation, and Brigaid 

Increasing the amount of fresh and scratch-made menu items in school meals can mean healthier food options for kids, but this can be challenging for schools with limited kitchen equipment and labor resources. This had led to an overreliance on pre-prepared foods for students like frozen foods and highly processed food items in order to meet meal pattern requirements that allow– even promote– serving refined grains and sugary donuts and orange juice for breakfast. However, some local and national organizations are working to change that. 

Arizona-based Blue Watermelon Project works at the community level of schools and school districts to increase access to fresh foods for students. Blue Watermelon Project is a group of chefs, restaurateurs, and community food advocates that works with students, parents, educators, and the community to assist schools in rethinking their relationships with food. A nationwide organization called Chef Ann Foundation is dedicated to promoting whole-ingredient, scratch-cooking in schools, and the company Brigaid works with school districts across the country to improve the quality of school food by harnessing a team of professional chefs that provide tailored support to help school foodservice programs achieve their goals. 

While sourcing from local farms may not have been the immediate focus of these organizations, their missions of increasing access to healthy meals opens the door to including more farm fresh ingredients.

To Learn More & Get Involved:

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