Healthy Food In Institutions

Championing Nutritious Food Environments in Schools and Institutions—Key Community Food Access Hubs

Nourish Colorado is helping institutional meal programs such as K12 School Districts, Early Care Programs, Older Adult Meal Programs and more, source and serve nutritious and delicious meals to their customers. Yes, the kids are our customers!  Institutions have incredible buying power—allocating many millions of taxpayer dollars each year to purchase food—and can be drivers for positive change when it comes to creating a true food value chain by changing the food system from the institutional kitchen out.

Our Chef team provides training, resources, connections, and more to support our institutions with procuring, storing, prepping, and serving fresh, local foods through our Local Procurement Colorado (LoProCO) program and Culinary Trainings. Visit our map to see where we work throughout the state.

Local Procurement Colorado (LoProCO)

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Institutions

K12 Schools, Early Childhood Education, Universities, Health Systems, Senior Centers, and Public Facilities

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Food Producers

Farmers, ranchers, and other local food suppliers

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Program Partners

Colorado State University, Colorado Department of Education Office of School Nutrition, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Division of Environmental Health and Sustainability —and so many more

LoProCO Mission

Facilitate farm to school and institution by educating, connecting, and training partners with the information, contacts, and know-how they need to procure, store, prep, and serve fresh, healthy food. Our focus is on K12, with additional support for Early Childhood, Older Adults, and other institutions. 

EDUCATE

Our food systems have evolved and gotten increasingly more complicated over time. There is a lot to know and even more to keep up with. LoProCO helps collaborators get a handle on how today’s food systems operate and how they can effectively work together to serve locally grown and raised, nutritious foods at Colorado’s schools and institutions. 

Connect

While the notion of buying and eating locally is not a new one, the logistics of making a shift can seem overwhelming for institutional meal programs with an established way of doing things. Often times they don’t know where to start or who to reach out to for guidance and support. LoProCO removes these barriers by facilitating connections between food service directors, community partners, local food producers, regulatory experts, and other resources to help make the process seamless for all collaborators.

Train

LoProCO hosts customized workshops to equip all partners with the tools, resources, and know-how to grow a nutritious food environment for children. We cover issues like regulatory compliance, safety, and school menu planning. We also run culinary trainings for kitchen leaders to help them adapt to changes local food sourcing may necessitate. These workshops are vital not only for training, but for in-person connections. “Speed dating” sessions give individual producers and food service directors the chance to meet face-to-face and forge personal relationships.

ADVOCATE

Policy plays a vital role in supporting LoProCO and making the vision of farm to school and institution a larger reality in Colorado. Recent ballot measures that we have led and/or supported have ensured access to free, nutritious meals made with quality ingredients for all students in public schools, have increased money for schools to buy Colorado-grown, raised, and processed products, and have supported partnerships that connect public and private resources to plan and develop local or regional food systems to strengthen viability and resilience of regional food economies through collaboration and coordination.

Read about our regional food systems partnerships program grant from USDA to infuse more resources and connections in SE Colorado and replicate in other regions.

Local Food Program

The Local Food Program (LFP) offers selected School Food Authorities (SFAs) reimbursement for the purchase of Colorado-grown, raised, or processed products and gives youth access to nutritious, high-quality, local food so they can excel in the classroom. This program encourages SFAs to procure local products, foster nutrition education, bolster farm to child nutrition activities, and support farmers, ranchers, and local food businesses by connecting them with school nutrition programs and by creating important financial opportunities. When SFAs procure products that are sourced from Colorado, they are helping to create new jobs and strengthen the local economy. Our role within LFP is to provide training, connections, and technical assistance to school districts participating in the program along with producers, food hubs, and communities across Colorado. For a visual of how the program works across partners, a program contact list, and a map of participating providers, view our LFP flow chart. Check out our infographics to see Year 1 New Providers Baseline DataYear 1 Cohort Grant ExpendituresYear 2 New Providers Baseline Dataand Year 2 Returning Providers Comparison

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Participating providers in grant year ’21-’22 representing 92K students

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Spent in total across providers on local foods equalling 3X the given allotment for ’21-’22

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Of produce spending went to procuring local vegetables, with 53% processed in the form of carrots

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Total new providers participating in grant year ’22-’23

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Out of 8 providers have knowledge of local/regional foods but want to learn more, and already serve some local items (32 different items) but want to serve them daily or weekly

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Out of 8 providers want more training on local food procurement & additional culinary skills support

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Out of 16 providers returned from the ’21-’22 program for grant year ’22-’23

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Of returning providers have confidence in knowledge of local foods, with 5 of the 12 growing school gardens

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Of returning providers want to serve a local item daily or weekly (40 different items currently reported) and want more training on local food procurement to help achieve this

Customers, whether those are our students or clients who consume meals prepared in an institutional setting, are becoming “foodies” with more discerning and expansive food preferences and expectations. Meeting these expanded preferences and expectations can positively impact an institution’s bottom line through increased participation. There is an increased demand for more fresh produce, scratch-made meals, usage of local ingredients, and culturally-relevant meals with a desire to see our institutional meal programs as “the best restaurants in town.” This is possible and already happening in many places!  

Typically though, adding these items to your menu plan requires additional planning, training, and equipment, especially if a majority of the menu is currently composed of items that are pre-made. There is a balance to menu items being fresher and our culinary trainings can support the process of building foundational skills and staff ownership/buy-in to enhance the variety of the meals offered in your meal program.  

Some of the services we offer are:

  • Food safety basics 
  • Time management/production planning  
  • Menu planning 
  • Recipe Development (check out some of our recent produce box recipes designed for home cooks)
  • Culinary Skills
  • Using equipment – small (immersion, robot, sectionizer) and large (tilt skillets, steam kettles, combination ovens, steamers, blast chillers) 
  • Leadership development 
  • Train the trainer 
  • and so much more!

Locally sourced ingredients for scratch-made meals offer advantages for chefs and food service workers, namely fresher and more flavorful ingredients to work with. Local ingredients also require some additional preparation steps and culinary skills in the kitchen. This is because fresh, local ingredients are often delivered in a different form than mass-produced ingredients from large commercial operations. To help food service employees adapt their kitchen workflows, LoProCO provides culinary training from an expert team of chefs and dietitians.

LoProCO’s Culinary Trainings follow a “train the trainer” model. We equip food service leads with the skills needed to handle fresh, locally sourced ingredients and take that knowledge back to their own kitchen staff.

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