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Azusa Unified spotlights scratch-cooking, garden-grown produce at Slauson Central Kitchen
Summary
At a Slauson Central Kitchen tour, Azusa Unified staff described a district-wide shift back to scratch cooking, a garden that supplies salad bars across school levels, daily operations for meal delivery, and rules that limit frying in school kitchens.
At a tour of Slauson Central Kitchen, staff from Azusa Unified described how the district is returning to made-from-scratch school meals and using produce from an on-site garden to supply salad bars at elementary, middle and high schools. Staff said the approach aims to increase student participation, reduce waste and teach students where food comes from.
Speaker 1 (staff member) framed the change as a reversal of decades of processed food service, saying that in earlier decades "we were cooking from scratch" and that as populations and costs rose districts moved toward processed foods. "Azusa was 1 of the first districts to really start bringing that scratch cooking back into schools," Speaker 1 said, attributing innovation in menu preparation to the district.
The central kitchen houses a large freezer and a dry storeroom for spices and oils; staff noted a recent delivery had temporarily filled storage. Kitchen staff described daily operations: chefs produce daily checklists…
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