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APS to expand fresh and culturally relevant menus, pilots food-rescue and composting
Summary
APS food and nutrition officials announced whole-milk options, expanded salad bars, culturally relevant monthly menu items, a Lunch Out of Landfills refrigeration pilot and plans to modernize the central kitchen to support more scratch cooking.
Marie Johnson, executive director of food and nutrition services, said the district will increase freshly prepared items and introduce culturally relevant meals across the year. "Whole milk is back, and it is back," Johnson said, and she described plans to feature a culturally relevant item most months — for example, blue corn mush and three-sisters stew for Native American Heritage Month.
Johnson said the district serves about 46,000 meals every day across 142 school sites and employs roughly 580 staff in food services; she described a Lunch Out of Landfills pilot that provides refrigerator units at shared tables in 12 community schools to allow students to take prepackaged items home. The district plans to expand salad bars (high schools already done; middle schools and K–8 sites by mid-September) and has 61 elementary schools participating in the USDA Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program this year.
Other planned steps include modernizing the central kitchen (contractors estimate 2–3 years), piloting composting at the central facility, launching a junior chef competition and hydroponic lettuce walls at Central Kitchen to support salad bars.
