On This Weekend's Show: 3/12

Chef Kate joins Greener Living. Read her interview on The Lunch Tray Blog about healthy foods in schools

Kate Adamick, principal of Food Systems Solutions LLC, is a well-known school food consultant who is committed to bringing back scratch cooking to America’s schools. Through her Cook for America® culinary boot camps, she works around the country to provide school food personnel with culinary training, turning them from re-heaters of processed food into what she calls passionate “Lunch Teachers.” Before getting into the world of school food, Kate practiced law, worked as a professional chef in both white tablecloth restaurants and institutions, and also owned a large wholesale and retail bakery.

I’m so pleased to be able to present today my interview with Kate Adamick.

TLT: I know you’re a big proponent of bringing back scratch cooking in the school setting, but it’s a common belief that scratch cooking costs more than the reheating of processed food, for a variety of reasons: the increased labor costs associated with chopping, assembling and other hands-on food prep; the higher cost of fresh foods vs. corn/soy-based processed foods; the cost of equipment for site-based food preparation; the need for facilities to house the equipment and the food; etc. Is this a misperception — can scratch cooking be accomplished under current reimbursement rates with no outside or community-raised funding? Can you explain how that might (or might not) be the case?

KA: If the only change that happens at a school is replacing canned fruit and vegetables with fresh produce, it will most definitely cost more. However, from my perspective as a school food consultant who spends a significant amount of time each year doing onsite assessments in public schools around the country, the common belief that scratch-cooking costs more than reheating processed food is ill-founded. This is particularly true in school districts with high rates of students who are eligible for free and reduced meals, in which there is a tremendous opportunity to dramatically increase revenue through breakfast in the classroom programs and to cut costs by no longer paying manufacturers to turn free raw commodity meat products in costly processed items. Even in wealthier school districts, existing costs can usually be significantly cut by such practices as eliminating the practice of portioning items into individual containers prior to service (which reduces labor hours and cuts costs for packaging), minimizing the number of choices offered daily (which reduces labor hours through economies of scale), and carefully planning cycle menu to control costs and manage inventory. When a school district’s food service operations are examined holistically, the potential for increased revenue and cost reduction can reach millions of dollars each year.

TLT: Can you tell us about the school food “boot camps” that you run?

KA: When Chef Andrea Martin and I created Cook for America®, we envisioned a nation of school food service personnel who are trained, empowered and inspired to provide healthy cooked-from-scratch school meals for America’s children. Our mission is to provide concentrated and comprehensive culinary training that transforms America’s school food service personnel into informed, passionate, and socially responsible professional culinarians who lead and support a school’s food service program by preparing healthy, cooked-from-scratch school meals and imparting sound food systems knowledge.

The 5-day Cook for America® Culinary Boot Camps cover all basic competencies necessary to prepare food service directors, kitchen managers, lead cooks, and support staff to run professional, cooked-from-scratch school lunch operations.

Major topics include: an overview of the school lunch food system from an historical and policy perspective; food safety and sanitation; culinary math; basic knife skills; foundational cooking techniques related to proteins, grains, legumes, vegetables, sauces, and baked items; menu planning; and time management. A critical step towards professionalizing the school food work environment and workforce, the Cook for America® Culinary Boot Camps build skills, confidence, awareness, and motivation among its participants. As a direct result of their participation in the Cook for America® Culinary Boot Camps, school food service personnel are transformed into school Lunch Teachers™ who work as culinary ambassadors, embracing their crucial role in nurturing America’s school children.

We also run instructor training programs in which professional chefs become certified to use the Cook for America® Culinary Boot Camp curriculum and teaching methods to help create Lunch Teachers™ in their own states.

At Cook for America®, we believe that school food is the solution, not the problem!

TLT: How do the boot camp skills you teach translate in schools in which there is little equipment besides a freezer and an oven for reheating? What do you say to schools that no longer have the labor force and/or equipment for scratch cooking?

KA: Most school district food service departments don’t need a bigger labor force to return to scratch-cooking, they need a better trained labor force. The equipment needs, however, vary from school to school. An oven, for example, can be used to cook raw chicken just as easily as it can be used to cook chicken nuggets, but the cooler space can frequently be problematic. In some districts, the best solution is to utilize one or more of its larger kitchen facilities as central kitchen to produce the entrées for the entire district. Sometimes this also requires staggered shifts of food service workers so that the kitchens can be operational from early morning through late evening. In short, there’s no single solution that will work for all districts, and coming up with the right solution for each situation usually requires thinking outside of the box. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

TLT: On a related note, I read that in Colorado, where you conducted boot camps, each school got $1000 to upgrade their equipment. Where did that funding come from and is $1000 generally enough to get a school kitchen up and running for scratch cooking?

KA: During the Cook for America® Culinary Boot Camps, quite a bit of time is spent teaching the Lunch Teachers™ how to save time and money in their daily operations, with the intent that they will be able use that money to help purchase additional equipment. In Colorado, The Colorado Health Foundation donates $1,000 for each school district that participates in the boot camps, which is intended as a token amount to allow a district to purchase a small piece of equipment (such as an immersion blender or a set of chef knives) that will help the Lunch Teachers™ be more efficient in their daily operations. The Colorado Health Foundation also makes large financial grants to districts that are willing (and eligible) to go through the full assessment process. In California, The Orfalea Foundations’ s’Cool Food Initiative makes large financial grants to all eligible districts that participate in the boot camps and can demonstrate both the commitment to return to scratch-cooking.

TLT: I’ll end with a selfish question: what would you do in a district like my own, in which 240,000 meals a day are prepared in a gleaming, $52 million central kitchen for reheating at local schools? Currently, only about 40% of the food is prepared through that kitchen — the rest is still processed elsewhere — and even much of the “scratch” cooking at the kitchen uses mixes and processed components. (By the way, we also use a food service management company — Aramark.) Any off-the-top-of-your-head thoughts on how to get even more scratch cooked food onto kids’ trays in my own district?

KA: I no longer work in school districts that contract their meal service out to food service providers. Children don’t stop learning just because it is meal time. In my opinion, introducing a for-profit service provider into a public education environment amounts to an abdication of responsibility that does little more than put the corporation’s well-being over the welfare of children. Were your district to be interested in going self-op, I would be delighted to discuss how to better utilize a $52 million central kitchen in a way that would put healthier food into your children’s bodies and less profits into food service management companies’ pockets.

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Thank you! This interview was borrowed from The Lunch Tray Blog.