To the uninitiated, optimizing student nutrition by using locally grown fresh produce in school lunches might appear straightforward -- especially in produce-bountiful Michigan. Can’t local farmers simply drop off the goods so staffers can serve them up in lieu of more processed fruits and vegetables?
In fact, making that happen isn’t usually so simple. Food service managers must contract with farmers early so they can plant extra crops in time. Then there are the logistics involved with transporting, cleaning, processing and preserving the food so it’s tasty and ready to eat at opportune times -- without taxing staffers or sanitary kitchen standards.
The bottom line is, that can be cost-prohibitive for single school systems to pull off, even when local fresh foods are cheaper than more processed versions.
The good news? Thanks to a $650,000 USDA funded grant known as
Partnership for Local Agriculture and Nutrition Transformation in Schools (or PLANTS), Michigan’s Montague Area Public Schools have launched a three-year pilot program aimed at streamlining the incorporation of local produce into school-sponsored meals. The goal is to establish processes that could be adopted by multiple Michigan school districts to achieve the economies of scale that would make such local produce more affordable for all. And those in charge are optimistic.
“We’re really close – about a year away – from building an infrastructure system for Muskegon County to get local foods into schools every day,” confirms Montague Schools Food Service Director Dan Gorman. “Then I think the following year we could expand into more of western Michigan”.
MSU’s Extension Service has facilitated the program by providing key contacts and information as needed, since its
primary roles include supporting food systems and improving food access for Michigan’s people and institutions.
Good for students, farmers, maybe school budgets
Gorman collaborated on the grant application with Clarence Rudat, manager of the Muskegon-based Food, Agriculture, Research and Manufacturing (FARM) accelerator owned by the Community Foundation for Muskegon County and managed by the MSU Extension Product Center.
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Courtesy of Montague Area Public SchoolsLocal potatoes are among the nearby ingredients being used for student lunches.Last May they learned the district would be one of eight nationwide grant recipients. Since then, the team has used some of the funding to hire production manager Kaitlyn Sutton for go-between food prep; to buy food processing tools and equipment and to lease two research and development kitchens. Rudat is serving as a paid consultant.
Plans call for a three-year pilot program centered around solving logistics of getting local fresh or frozen foods onto local student plates. Thanks to Sutton’s assistance, the first foods on the docket – fresh local potatoes – are already replacing some of the processed frozen French fries or tater tots typically served. Next, plans call for a pico (salsa) using fresh carrots and apples. Rudat points to asparagus, blueberries, bean muffins and slaw as other immediate options.
“The biggest goal is to get students eating high-quality, healthy food products,” he notes. “Hopefully, it will be something they want to eat because it doesn’t have a lot of road miles on it and isn't an ultra-processed product.”
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Local potatoes were a natural first choice since Gorman had already worked on adding them to student lunches, thanks in part to guidance from Kalamazoo’s local food facilitator
ValleyHUB. Holland farm Crisp Country Acres has been supplying the district potatoes since January.
“We do weekly deliveries in the area, so it was a pretty easy transition for us,” reports co-owner Lindsey Visser. “Being able to provide produce during the winter months to local schools and other businesses has made it possible for us to provide employment to many of our full-time employees. And the more local food we can get into local schools is great for the kids and for our local economy.”
Gorman says the greatest interest in supplying Montague Schools has thus far come from smaller-volume farmers likely to see significant revenue bumps from such contracts.
“This can be a financial bonus to farmers,” he points out. “With the potato farmers who grow for potato chips, you say you need 500 pounds of potatoes and they want to send 500 truck loads. But working with half a dozen small farmers who are just starting out and want to plant more and grow their businesses, to me that’s the sweet spot.”
Rudat notes that larger-scale farmers could also profit if the Montague program produces a model that can be scaled to a large number of schools statewide. More cost-efficient processing is key, he says; solutions may include larger shared food processing facilities and/or farmer-managed food prep.
The greatest challenges so far? Gorman points to the learning process of negotiating processes used by Muskegon County, the Muskegon Intermediate School District and the MSU Extension. Rudat says estimating future produce needs can be tricky, since farmers plan their crops months ahead.
“A lot of good organizations can give advice, but we’re doing this for the first time, and that means we’re going to make mistakes,” notes Gorman. “But we feel confident we can make this into a system”.
Detroit Public Schools Community District, the second Michigan recipient of a 2024 PLANTS grant, plans to use it to strengthen an existing farm-to-school food program and expose students to real-world culinary arts and horticulture experiences. The grants are co-sponsored by nonprofit the Chef Ann Foundation.
Looking ahead
Since students are still largely unaware of the local-foods efforts, Gorman says it’s unclear whether they’ve noticed the changes to date. But they’re already involved in taste testing potential cafeteria recipes, and plans call for promoting the program to the school community as well as using it to expose students to food manufacturing careers.
“We’re so grateful this is a three-year program,” he adds. “That gives us enough time to make mistakes, figure out what works and what doesn’t, and move forward.”
Aiding in that task: Gorman and crew have worked over the last decade to try to incorporate local foods into the district, using smaller grants as funding.
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Courtesy of Montague Area Public SchoolsStudents taste test different seasoning versions for roasted potatoes project. “It makes a difference when a staff has a passion about providing a really good product to students,” Rudat notes. “Creating a culture within the school and the food service staff is something that’s really important, and a lot of schools around western Michigan have a culture around providing really good food.”
While Michigan recently lost some USDA funding for local foods in schools as well as regional food infrastructure grants, schools are still aided by the state’s
10 Cents a Meal program that provides schools and early care and education sites a 10-cents-per-meal financial match when buying Michigan-grown produce. Now used by some 250 school districts in Michigan, Rudat says it does pay for some food transport and processing costs.
Gorman says the specific program Montague is building probably can’t be scaled statewide, but other Michigan school districts could still benefit from its tenets. His advice to them? Start by networking with other local community members, school staffers and organizations that have similar interests.
“The idea of getting more local food into kids is such a powerful idea that people want to support,” he advises. “Find others who have an equal level of passion for making this work”.
Originally from Kalamazoo, freelance writer Michelle Miron now lives in the frozen tundra of Minnesota, where her side hustle is selling vintage clothing.