Chef Ann Foundation’s resource website The Lunch Box is an online resource that is dedicated to supporting school districts as they transition their food programs from processed foods to scratch cooking and fresh ingredients. The newly released Lunch Box contains new and updated menu-planning, salad bar, procurement, management, and human resource tools and a library of case studies, training videos, blogs and more for school food programs.
- Recipes: Through a partnership with Horizon/OneSource, a popular K-12 food service software company, The Lunch Box has an all-new database of tried and true recipes. The recipes are analyzed, can be scaled, saved and downloaded. In addition, there are breakfast and lunch menu cycles with nutrient analysis and their USDA certification worksheets ‒ also downloadable.
- Salad Bars: The salad bar section provides step by step resources that guide schools from assessment to implementation and more.
- Breakfast: Here you will find information on everything from case studies to best practices for implementing Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC), Grab ’n Go, Breakfast Break, and other alternative breakfast solutions.
- Procurement: How do we source our ingredients and fulfill the mission of serving fresh, whole foods while working within the food budget available to school food programs? The Lunch Box Procurement sections offer resources ranging from menu ingredient forecasting, local food procurement strategies to antibiotic- and hormone-free procurement.
- Management: To innovate, a food service department must be organized, efficient, and stable—capable of thinking outside the box while keeping their highly regulated child nutrition programs self-sustaining. The management section offers all the fiscal tracking and analysis strategies required to support a program in transition as well as assessment tools, human resources support, and policies.
- Marketing and Education: Making delicious meals with healthy food is one thing, getting students to eat them is another. Check out the marketing section for downloadable posters, menu boards and signs as well as step by step How-To Guides for Lunchroom Education activities like; Junior Chef competitions, tastings, Chef Demos, and art contests.
