Alexandria Public Schools plans more local sourcing, push toward scratch cooking in school meals

Janine Petersen, director of Food and Nutrition Services for Alexandria Public School District, told the school board the department increased local purchases by 54% this year and plans a multiyear shift toward more scratch cooking and locally sourced proteins.

Petersen told the board the department added a new vendor, The Good Acre, installed a cooler at a central hub to simplify farmer deliveries and avoid coordinating drop-off schedules, and provided staff culinary training so kitchens could produce more soups, sauces and dressings from scratch.

Those steps, Petersen said, produced a notable rise in local procurement without the large anticipated jump in overall food costs: “We increased our purchases by 54% this year, which for us was a pretty big jump,” she said. She told the board some items remain costly — “for example, chicken, it’s $9 more a pound” — but that the mix of suppliers and improved distribution has made local sourcing more practical.

The shift toward scratch and quick-scratch cooking is rooted in goals Petersen outlined: whole foods first; local where possible; scratch cooking; and less processed foods. Petersen said the department is working with the Chef Ann Foundation to analyze current menus and ingredient lists and plans to pilot menu changes over the next three years. “It’s gonna be gradual,” she said. “This is gonna be something that is gradual. Our vision is serving whole minimally processed meals through scratch cooking and local sourcing.”

Petersen described steps to build staff capacity, including bringing a local chef to train kitchen teams and altering the department’s internal survey process to get more candid feedback from employees. She said it was important that staff feel safe to share ideas and that the department is building recognition and training into its culture.

Participation and finances: Petersen said lunch participation remained high and roughly stable year to year while breakfast participation rose after meals were free. She reported an approximate 82% lunch participation rate districtwide. She noted the food service fund operates separately from the general fund and must be self-sustaining; universal free meals and state reimbursement increases have helped, and recent state rule changes gave food service more flexibility to use state funds for equipment and installation costs (for example, slabs and electrical work associated with coolers), easing a previous barrier to capital purchases.

Petersen flagged upcoming federal changes that could affect purchasing and menus: stricter Buy American requirements and planned limits on added sugars and sodium in school foods. She said the USDA rules will first affect items such as yogurt and cereal and later impose larger reductions in sodium: “Sodium will be a 10% reduction for breakfast, 15% reduction for lunch,” Petersen said. She told the board she expected manufacturers to respond but also said the district’s move to more scratch cooking would give staff greater control over sugar and salt levels.

Board members asked about program details and accessibility. A board member asked whether staff or family meals are tracked separately; Petersen said the district does record staff/family meals but the report does not distinguish family members from district staff and that such a breakdown could be useful. On local proteins, Petersen said the district has a grant to buy local free-range chicken from Tree Range Farms in southern Minnesota and plans to serve it at least once a month.

The presentation closed with Petersen saying the department will continue food-acceptability testing with students and scale training and equipment purchases as funding allows.

Petersen’s presentation noted both programmatic ambitions and constraints: student acceptability, staff training time and equipment needs. The board did not take any formal action on her report; it was delivered as an informational update during the meeting.