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Better Food, Better Futures: Solving School Food Procurement Challenges
00:47:45
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- [00:02]
John Brucato
You're listening to ASBO International's School Business Insider. I'm your host, John Brucato. Each week on School Business Insider, I sit down with school business officials and industry experts from around the world to share their stories and explore the topics that matter most to you. Find out what it means to be a school business official and get your insider pass on all things school business. Welcome back to School Business Insider. Today we're exploring an exciting initiative that aims to improve the quality and sustainability of food procurement in our nation's schools. In collaboration with the usda, Asbury International is working with the Urban School Food alliance to tackle some of the biggest challenges in school food procurement, from navigating rising costs to ensuring nutritional quality and sustainability. Joining us are two key leaders on this project, Dr. Katie Wilson, executive Director of the Urban School Food alliance, and Dottie Arnold, Cooperative Agreement Administrator. Together, they'll share insights into the complexities of school food procurement, the goals of their cooperative agreement with the usda, and how this initiative is making a positive impact for students, schools, and communities across the country. Welcome, Katie and Dottie. So happy to have you on the podcast today.
- [01:25]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Thanks. Appreciate you being here. And I appreciate the partnership with ASPO International.
- [01:30]
John Brucato
Wonderful, wonderful. So, before we jump into what I kind of talked about at the top of the episode, maybe we can just take a quick moment and each of you can just introduce yourselves and let the audience know who you are. So, Katie, why don't we start with you?
- [01:43]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Sure. Thanks. I'm Dr. Katie Wilson, the Executive Director for the Urban School Food Alliance. My background is in school nutrition. I was a school nutrition director in Wisconsin in three different sized school districts for 20 years, and then led the Institute of Child Nutrition, which is a training arm for school nutrition employees nationwide, for five years, and then was appointed as deputy undersecretary for the USDA Food Nutrition Services in the Obama administration before taking this position. So my career and my passion are definitely school meals.
- [02:12]
John Brucato
Great. Great. Well, welcome.
- [02:14]
Dr. Katie Wilson
All right.
- [02:14]
John Brucato
So, Dottie, do you want to introduce yourself to our audience?
- [02:17]
Dottie Arnold
Yeah. So my name is Dottie Arnold, and I'm the Cooperative Agreement Administrator for the Urban School Food Alliance. And so I jumped on board with the URB Food alliance in this role, coming from a background in project coordination and project management, previously with the state of Colorado and also the state of Massachusetts prior to that. And my connection to school food and food in general comes from my background as a farmer, and I've been trained in sustainable agriculture, and I taught farm education to students for many years. And so My passion for food in school has always been a huge part of my life and I'm really excited to use that passion and now my experience in project management as well to help support this project.
- [03:05]
John Brucato
Wow, great. Well, so happy to have both of you on. And Dottie, what an interesting background. Kind of now led here. So for, you know, those new to the topic, could you maybe give us just a brief overview of the Urban School Food alliance and really what the mission is of the organization?
- [03:22]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Sure. The Urban School Food alliance is the. It's a membership based organization. We're a 513C nonprofit and we, our members are the largest public school nutrition programs in the country. So they're executive directors, chefs, dietitians, menu planners. It's voluntary. They join us as a professional development organization. And so we really work on three pillars. One is sharing of best practices. Many of these large urban districts have so many unique challenges, so they share a lot of best practices. Certainly advocacy for all school nutrition programs, because all of us are very in tune with what's going on in advocacy for school nutrition programs. And basically what we do can trickle down to all size districts as well. And then finally definitely procurement. And we really think that we are so large, 4.2 million children served a day in our districts collectively at this time, because we have 18 of the largest school nutrition programs as our members. But procurement, we think we can really change the marketplace. Instead of being subject to it all the time, it's time for us to push against the marketplace and change the marketplace for the better for children.
- [04:34]
John Brucato
So tell me a little bit more about that. What do you feel needs to be changed versus what we've been doing for so long? I mean, what can be improved? I'm sure we could speak multiple hours about what needs to be improved. Right? But what do you feel can be changed at this moment that's gonna really benefit districts across the nation?
- [04:51]
Dr. Katie Wilson
So we like to always talk about enhancing school nutrition programs rather than improving, because we know that across this country there are fabulous programs serving kids fabulous food. But our mission statement is really to leverage our collective voice to transform school meals. We know just from the experience alone that we bring to the table that school food procurement, the process of procure in our school systems, is broken. Many of the procurement rules at the federal, state, and even local levels are not for food. And so you can have the best specification, the best bid, the best documents possible going out on the street to procure food, and it gets to the business official or the procurement office or wherever and all Of a sudden, it's lowest price. And there's no need for that. There's no rule of regulation that requires that at the federal level. So that's really kind of the problem. And what we're really looking into is how did we get to the point where we think food has to be lowest price, and then what is it we get for that lowest price that we're feeding our children every day?
- [05:56]
John Brucato
And do you find. Of course, at the federal level, that's one requirement, but are you seeing varying requirements state by state? So are some states mandating that that lowest price be honored, or is there a little bit more flexibility than you otherwise would see, maybe with buying equipment or supplies or something like that?
- [06:12]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Right now we're working with Harvard University as part of this cooperative agreement to do a research project looking at the federal procurement rules. What rules from the federal level don't really work for food, but then they are. They're researching all the states and their different rules in food procurement. And what we're finding is some of the states have very restrictive rules and regulations for food. And some of them are very complex that. That really aren't in the best interest of buying food. And so that's a really sort of setting out to map out and show people and then hopefully work with these states, even regionally, to say, is there a better way to procure school food that isn't the same as paper, pencils and school buses?
- [06:52]
John Brucato
Right. And it may be a little too early or unfair to ask this question, but I guess I'll ask it anyways. Where do you think those complexities come from? Why would a state make it challenging to procure food when it just seems like such a necessity and something that we should be prioritizing in school districts? Why have states made. Some states have maybe made that a little bit more difficult than it should be?
- [07:13]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Well, I think when states look at procurement rules and even local procurement rules, some of it, what we found out and what we know from the past is that it might be because someone was not a good actor in the position. Right. So somewhere along the line, someone decided to do some fraudulent activities. Whatever the state wants to protect itself, so does the local district. And so they put new rules in place because of something that may have happened. But I also think that sometimes people just don't think of it as food as a perishable item. We all know that there are rules and regulations and accountability for spending public funds. These are public funds, so you have to have accountability. There has to be some code of ethics that we all follow and the rules that we follow. So I wonder if sometimes it's just not that people just didn't think of it as a perishable item. And so it got caught up into the fact that this is what we do for public procurement.
- [08:07]
John Brucato
Right. So you mentioned the cooperative agreement with the USDA a little bit. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? And what are the main goals with partnering with the usda?
- [08:16]
Dottie Arnold
Okay. Yeah. So this project, one of the main goals of this project, and pretty much the main goal of this project is to really improve procurement practices for districts of all sizes. So while our organization is focused on these urban districts, this project reaches all districts. And so some of the. The activities that are a part of this project are like Dr. Wilson was talking about, reviewing these practices and regulations from a state, local, and federal level. It will also be. And it also has been involving developing trainings specifically to procurement, and we're conducting those trainings around the country. And the project's goal is also to provide these school nutrition leaders with easy to use procurement tools and have their voice, a part of this process. This project is also developed in three phases. And so for the first year of this project, we just wrapped up year one, and that first phase has really been investigative. So we've been developing this project. Our advisory procurement workgroup is a huge part of including all of these voices in this process. Collaboration is one of the other main goals of this project. So when we look at a map of all the different state agencies that are a part of this project, we're gaining, continually gaining more states. I think we're up to 43 out of 50 states a part of this project have a voice in the process. And that's really, really paramount to this project's success because we want to make sure that everyone's voices are at the table so that when we're developing these resources and developing this project year by year, we can take the feedback we're receiving and create these procurement practices to really represent what everyone is seeing and what everyone's needing. So I think other than that, I think I'll stop there for now.
- [10:21]
John Brucato
Sounds good.
- [10:22]
Dottie Arnold
Yeah.
- [10:22]
John Brucato
So as you go through this and in your organization, I'm sure you're dealing with so many school districts across the nation. There are a myriad of challenges that school districts face. Can you talk to me about some of those biggest challenges in food procurement today?
- [10:38]
Dottie Arnold
Yeah.
- [10:39]
Dr. Katie Wilson
The challenges that school nutrition programs face, first of all, is just funding. The money just isn't there. To buy the food that they want. In particular, you know, the reimbursement rate comes from the federal government and then some. The states kick in a small amount as well, depending upon a child's income level. It's very prescriptive, what the menu has to be and what the portion sizes have to be. So many of the foods we're trying to order are specific to school nutrition. So the folks that are out there manufacturing food, selling food and distributing food, they're doing that for all sorts of food entities, from restaurants to hospitals to universities and public schools. And so when it comes to school nutrition programs, they have to buy food that's very prescriptive underneath the national school lunch program, if that's the program they're under. And really, the issue is we are seeing a fallout of companies that do not want to do business with schools anymore because of that. And I had one, for instance, a distribution. Many of the districts, even our large urban districts, they don't get answers to bids. They put out a bid. They're large bids, massive bids, but nobody answers them. Nobody wants to do business with them anymore. So we're looking for ways to become better customers. In the school nutrition marketplace, for instance, we always thought we were some of the best customers because those companies knew they were going to get paid because it was a school district. But the school district sometimes delays those payments 30 to 60 days after the items are delivered. The general practice in restaurants and hospitals and universities is 10 days. So can you imagine delivering thousands and tens of thousands of dollars of inventory and then waiting up to 60 days to get paid? So one of the things, for instance, we're looking at is, is there a way to shorten that window to pay for food simply because those companies are waiting a long time to be paid? The profit level is so low. We talked a minute ago about lowest price. I had a distributor say, you know, I can put three customers on one truck. They can drive overnight and deliver overnight, going into those facilities to deliver that food, Put an invoice in a lockbox, and I'm at about 35% profit margin. Your large urban school districts want me to deliver to 700 schools in very odd locations, very difficult delivery situations, and then you're going to give me a 3,4% profit margin. I'm not interested in that business anymore. And so we're really seeing this across the country. And that's one of the reasons why we got engaged in all of this, is how do we become better business partners in this whole space of school procurement? Or food procurement in general, because we're competing against all the other entities that supply other facilities with food.
- [13:24]
John Brucato
So I'm wondering, when we talk about the lowest price and now a reduction in the competition, is that lowest price now that's that basement or that floor now creeping up. So what was the lowest price a few years ago is really no longer because there's such a shrinkage in the competition.
- [13:42]
Dr. Katie Wilson
I think that shrinkage in the competition is causing some of that. But what's happening because of that is you're being forced to take something you didn't really bargain for. So for instance, if you don't get any bids at all, you might have to break up your solicitation. And now you're at the whim of anybody that wants to, anybody that's willing to deliver to your facilities. That upcharge could be drastic. We got a letter from one of our large urban districts about a year and a half ago that the delivery costs were going up 345%.
- [14:12]
John Brucato
Wow.
- [14:13]
Dr. Katie Wilson
We don't get reimbursements that are 345% increased each year. So you really become in a very disadvantaged position if you don't begin to do more of a request for proposal and create a business arrangement rather than sort of line item lowest price. That's no longer a feasible option if you really want to get good prices with high quality food.
- [14:39]
John Brucato
I'm wondering too, just overall participation in the lunch program from students. You said, and I know firsthand that the National School Lunch program is very prescriptive. Are you finding that that's becoming a deterrent with students participating in the school lunch program? Like, are they not. Do they not favor the school lunch program because it is so prescriptive? They want more choice and it's not like the lunches they can get outside of the school. Have you seen a direct correlation to that at all?
- [15:08]
Dr. Katie Wilson
No, the correlation really isn't there. And really actually the nutrition standards, when they. The really drastic ones that came into place, there were studies done about a year later and actually participation went up.
- [15:18]
John Brucato
Oh, great.
- [15:19]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Kids want to know that they're cared about. Kids care about good nutrition. But they also are very consumer savvy. And so I think school nutrition employees do a really good job working with industry to come up with products that sort of meet that profile. And that's one of the things we're looking at, is that how do we do that and then get those foods into our schools that meet our customers demands?
- [15:42]
John Brucato
So you mentioned the profit margins are razor thin when it comes to the actual company's interest in actually bidding on these, these jobs. But what about like inflation, supply chain, just overall economic condition, has that played a role in really the state of school food procurement?
- [15:59]
Dr. Katie Wilson
The inflation and supply chain issues have certainly played a role. Our reimbursement rate from the federal government does not. And Congress has to set that rate. It's congressional. It is not keeping pace with what the cost of things are. Certainly coming out of COVID we saw huge supply chain issues and that's what really opened the door. Of course there's always a solution to everything challenge. And actually one of the positive sides is that it really opened the door to what our supply chain looked like in this country. And now this whole movement for local procurement, fresher food, supporting your local economies, that has really started to gain momentum and we love to see that.
- [16:40]
John Brucato
And does that translate across all states? I mean, I'm sure each state has its own capacity for kind of local procurement. But are you seeing that that's an equitable means of sourcing food is locally? Because I'm wondering if certain states don't have that agricultural capacity to deliver what the demand is from school districts.
- [16:59]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Well, I think, and Dottie can chime in here as well because she's been speaking to a number of groups in this area. But I think that what we're seeing with this local procurement is that it's everything from produce to protein items. Fish we have, Seattle is one of our districts and they're buying local, local salmon from local fishers. So I think that there's a real interesting industry beginning to create. Dottie, don't you agree with seasonality and go ahead and talk about what you just spoke to the National Department of Agriculture.
- [17:34]
Dottie Arnold
Yeah. So one of the things that is in these kind of settings where we're having these discussions about local procurement, local foods coming into the school system, is that one the usta. And Katie, correct me if I'm wrong on this, the USDA changed the geographic preference for procurement and so now you're allowed to put local into your procurement. And so that's really fabulous because all these districts are allowed to define, well, what does local mean? And so we have districts that are in places that are super rural, that are maybe small, but they set their local to being, you know, 250 miles from where their school district is located. So if they're close to a state line, then they can go across state lines and still meet that local, you know, value based procurement that they put into their, into their bidding. Process. And it's really interesting to see how. We've worked with the state director for the state of Alaska and she talked a lot about how the state of Alaska is very rural. It's very far away from the other states in this country who have year round, potentially year round agriculture. And so they've been really creative in bringing things like sea asparagus onto the menu in school districts, which is something that's native to Alaska. In New Mexico, there's items like green chili and having that be a part of the menu also then encourages students to maybe try things that they're used to seeing at home and then supporting the local farmers in the region. So that was something that was being talked about recently with the Agricultural Marketing Summit in Albuquerque, which was like a gathering of state directors and as well as Department of Agriculture representatives to talk about how we can bring in value based procurement, local foods into the school marketplace.
- [19:33]
John Brucato
That's great. So it's safe to say that school districts in Idaho just aren't eating potatoes. They can expand that range to maybe.
- [19:41]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Localized, expanding to lots of things. Bison is a very popular item now in school nutrition programs across the country, as well as beef, very lean meat. Yeah, absolutely. So we really are seeing some broad based. But this brings us back to the problems of procurement. Because many of these purchases are considered micro purchases. The state is identified. Some states identify a lower micro purchase level than the federal government allows. And so. And some states will say, well, if you buy at least twice, two or three times from the same vendor, you have to find new vendors. Well, how do you find new farmers if you've made new relationships? So all of these things come into play. And I think this is where ASBO International can really help as well, because those business officials need to be talking to the state agencies and asking the questions of what is this? What is our micro purchasing level? And then challenging that if they don't feel that it's reasonable because they know their area the best.
- [20:42]
John Brucato
Great. Let's talk a little bit more about that. How does the USDA Cooperative Agreement really help to address those challenges? And what role does ASBO play in that? So if our listenership are primarily school business officials or adjacent to the business office with asbo, where do they get involved?
- [21:00]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Well, I think they have a very crucial role in all of this and that's why we invited them to serve on our national advisory group. And we have two representatives from ASBO International on the national advisory group work group to give their input. Again, they're the final decision Maker. When it comes to procurement, they're the ones that are watching the books. So they need to know, they need to understand how this works. Because if their state is putting some limitations on that really are not federal limitations and the district doesn't agree with them, they need to be asking why and what's the purpose of that limitation and then explaining why that makes it difficult for their district to do business in their area. I think that the business officials have a very large role to play when it comes to whether they decide to buy lowest price or not. You know, in the federal regulation, the buy American requirement is a regulation and you have to make sure that you're buying American for the majority of your items. Now, there is a clause in the Buy American rule that says unless it's significantly more expensive to buy American. So in many cases a solicitation will go out and they'll ask for American product pricing and foreign pricing, domestic and foreign. And it's up to that business official many times as to whether that, what, what solicitation they're going to accept, what pricing are they going to accept. So I think again, that's very important. Do they want to support the American farmer or do they want to go with a non domestic product which is cheaper because they can show that it's not significant, it's more, you know, significantly less expensive. The USDA does not define the word significantly. That's up to every district. So I think that the role is crucial that they work hand in hand with the school nutrition program to make sure that they're doing what's in the best interest of our American farmers as well as our communities.
- [22:57]
John Brucato
That's great. And so what are some specific milestones and goals of the cooperative agreement? So if someone's really interested in how this develops, what can they really look out for to see the progress that's actually being made?
- [23:08]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Well, I think there's a landing page that we have on our website at www.urbanschoolfoodalliance.org and it's a cooperative agreement landing page. So all of the information is on there. You can leave comments too, if you'd like suggestions on what we might look at or if you have a thought or a comment. We have what we decided on is the six pain points of school nutrition procurement and that was developed by the national work group. And so on that landing page are the six pain points of school food procurement and then all the work that's being done under each pain point. So if there's a school business official that is interested in what's going on. We have subcommittees they can join, which is virtual. And it's really just if they have time, we pass through information to them and if they have time to make comment, fine. If they don't, they don't have to worry about that. So it's not a commitment, but they certainly can leave comment. They can see the workflow that's going on and what we're all doing and make any suggestions that they have. Because like Dottie said earlier, we want everybody's voice. We all have to be partners in this. We also need ASBO International to be strong, to tell Congress that there needs to be higher funding for these meals per meal reimbursement. And again, talking to their states if they have some crazy limits to what procurement can look like, especially in their local procurement rules.
- [24:36]
John Brucato
Have you seen any initial successes or accomplishments out of this cooperative agreement yet? Has anything really surfaced to the top to say, okay, we're really headed in the right direction, we're seeing things happening? Or are you still just workshopping a lot and working on those six pain points?
- [24:52]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Well, we're definitely hearing from vendors, the industry, that they see better bids coming out. They see things that are a little bit cleaner. They're not 20 years old with an outdated food service director's name and phone number on it.
- [25:04]
John Brucato
Photocopies of photocopies.
- [25:06]
Dr. Katie Wilson
That's right. Still, yeah, dittoed. You know, we're really working on teaching people how to forecast. And so we've got some preliminary anecdotal information that, wow, people are beginning to talk about this and think about this. We also do see that state agencies are starting to talk about what is in your contract. That's not necessary. Same with the local contracts. We have found crazy things like if they wanted the CEO of every company doing business with the schools, they wanted the CEO's resume. Why? Who's going to answer that Bid? Right. So we do have anecdotal that people are beginning to talk about things. We also have been really pushing people to do things electronically. It's so much more efficient. We are developing an online bid template that we are piloting right now. It will never be forced on anybody, but it'll be definitely useful to districts that would like to use it as kind of a template and how to do a good bid. Think of TurboTax dropdown boxes where you'll find the regulations, the state can put in their regulations. And so it'll be a much better tool for people to use. And so we're Just now piloting that. But people are loving it. They're saying, this is great. It has all the required forms in it. I don't have to keep reinventing the wheel. So anecdotally we're really beginning to hear that people are at least coming to grips with the fact that we need to find better business practices in school food service procurement.
- [26:34]
John Brucato
That's great. So with this initiative, affordability obviously is incredibly important, but I'm sure school districts don't want to sacrifice the quality of the food. So how is this initiative really able to kind of strike that balance between affordability while maintaining the integrity of the nutritional value of the food that kids are ultimately consuming day after day?
- [26:56]
Dr. Katie Wilson
I think that is what this whole initiative is all about. Exactly. Making sure we hit that middle of the road on both sides. We need accountability, we have to be cost effective, but we really want the best food possible. And so through some of the procurement training and eliminating some of these outlandish sort of limitations and expectations, we can use more of our money to buy better food than we to do all the paperwork and to do all the, some of the hoops we have to jump through. In some of these states and local districts, you're going to get a better price if you become a better partner with a distributor. So really the federal regulation allows you to do a one year solicitation with four years of extension. If you have meetings with those people that are servicing your district, are you doing audits, are you doing all the good, the work that needs to be done to be accountable? That's a business relationship. And our and your members at ASBU International understand that clearly. And so if you do that business relationship, your pricing is definitely going to be more stabilized and it's probably going to be better because you're going to be a better customer that they're going to want to serve. What I said earlier, if you can shrink that payment time once you get those invoices, how soon can you pay that company? You're going to look better. The other piece is we're really talking to people about don't leave anything on the table. Buy what you bid. If you've bid it, you need to buy it. It's a business agreement. Notoriously, school nutrition programs will put something on their bid and the kids don't like it, they decide they're not going to buy it. Well, now you're stuck with that specialized school food service product, might have USDA foods in it, so you can't sell it commercially next time around in Your bid, your prices are definitely going to go up because that company's had to deal with this product now to get rid of it. Right? So there's so many different practices you can do that make you a better business customer, better business partner, and your pricing is definitely going to go down in those or at least stabilize. Another thing we like to talk about are some of the. The sliding scales. We do it for fuel in schools and we do it for milk. And so why are we not doing it for some of the other. The other products, the other commodities that are available? You would benefit if the price of beef went down. When you buy your beef, you're going to pay a little more if it goes up. But again, we want to pay our American farmers a fair price. So I think there's a really benefit in finding the middle ground of quality food versus cost. And then it's all about being a good partner because those companies are going to want to do business with you.
- [29:34]
John Brucato
And can you talk to me a little bit more about some of the ways that this is helping schools prioritize healthier options or local sustainable sourcing? I know, Dottie, you talked about being able to define what local is, but is there anything else that schools are going to be able to kind of capitalize on to just really incentivize, just a healthier array of options for students and sustainable as well?
- [29:59]
Dottie Arnold
So one of the ways, at least for this project that I'm thinking of for this is we're really trying to have these conversations about, well, how do we really connect farmers with school districts and how do we make sure the conversation begins to understand school food procurement? And so that's one of the many parts and deliverables of this cooperative agreement with the USDA is to really look at that, look at the toolkits that are out there for connecting producers to schools. And I think that also, not only is it bringing in sustainable food sources for students to eat, it's also creating sustainable economic conditions for farmers, which is something that is a part, a desire of this project. And I think that right now we're looking at the Bringing the Farm to School toolkit that was developed by the National Farm to School Network is a really fabulous resource that we're sharing within this project to really showcase how procurement can connect farmers to schools and bolster that sustainability component.
- [31:03]
Dr. Katie Wilson
And I think the less mileage that you take that product, the less carbon footprint you have.
- [31:08]
Dottie Arnold
Right.
- [31:08]
Dr. Katie Wilson
So lots of good things.
- [31:11]
John Brucato
Are you seeing an interest from farmers, like, do they want a seat at the table when it comes to this. And I mean, there's a lot to be kind of unpacked when it comes to school nutrition. It's a complex animal, both federally and the local level could be intimidating to farmers who may not be really in tune with everything that we as school districts have to deal with in terms of regulation, legislation. What has been the response from the farmers and the agricultural industry to really kind of push this initiative forward?
- [31:42]
Dottie Arnold
Yeah, so I think currently we're in the slow season for the majority of farmers, at least vegetable farmers in this country. And so we're working to have these conversations now with farmers about, you know, let's talk about procurement. Let's. Let's kind of share this language with each other so you all can understand kind of how each other is speaking about this topic. And we've seen, we've seen some good interest from different regions. And of course, this project is still in its early days, so we're growing, growing and growing to connections. But folks are definitely interested. I think we. One of the. One of the really great members of our national advisory work group is from the Minneapolis Public Schools, Bertrand Weber. And he's been really modeling a fantastic way of working with farmers in a seasonal approach. And so every December and January, he meets with his farmers to talk about, here's what to expect with this, with this model moving forward for the year. Here's what we're looking for, and how can we work together to bring in these healthy, healthy, local foods into the school system. And that has been really successful. And Minneapolis Public Schools is a large district. And so we're using that experience that he's shared as also a model of how can we do this in all size districts if possible? And I think that one of the things that we've heard from producers of varying sizes is it's always a desire to find a way to have sustainable income. And so if they're able to make these relationships with school districts and the people who are buying the food, then for the farmer, that just means that is one less thing that they need to think about when they're doing their crop plan for the next year. Knowing that they can sell a certain amount of produce to a school district means that it's just sustainable income for them to continue their operations. And that's also the same for producers of beef as well as other animal products like chicken and many other things. It's not just vegetable producers. I think beef is one of the, if not the largest, local product that enters into the school system. And so it's, it's helpful for all farmers as long as they understand the procurement process, which is what we're trying to do with this project is developing those kind of collaborative documents and training so that people can really understand what they're getting into.
- [34:13]
Dr. Katie Wilson
And I think that's part of where we see a huge gap. And that is a lot of people for years have said we should increase local procurement, but the farmers, the producers don't know how to get in touch with the school food procurement folks. And the school food procurement folks don't know how to get in touch with producers that are interested in this kind of thing. Not everybody is, but that is where the gap is. And that's where we're trying to do some webinars with collaborative organizations that work with producers. Another really good example of this is one of our districts is Los Angeles Unified School District. And they just had a huge celebration last spring where they've collaborated with a number of producers. And of course they're the second largest district in the country. You can't possibly produce enough for that district. And that's some of the fear that a producer has. What they've done is they've partnered with farmers that have become the sort of collective agency of the surrounding area. So farmer dad produces olives on 10 acres of land, but he's now the aggregator for all the different farmers for various products. And they have two or three of those farmers that have decided to do that together collectively. And it has just been an unbelievably successful program for them. And just think of LAUSD and just the logistics of doing all of that. But when people come together and the agencies that are these people are involved with come together, that's when success happens. And so we have some really good case studies to share in some of these areas.
- [35:45]
John Brucato
That's great. So not only are school districts benefiting, but the farmers themselves are benefiting because there is a certain level of certainty if they establish those relationships, knowing that if they plant a certain crop, they're almost guaranteed that they'll be able to sell majority of that because the school district knows that that's what they're going to be procuring for years to come. So that's great to see that this relationship isn't just one sided with school districts looking to benefit, but very much reciprocal with the farmers and the agricultural industry as well. That's great.
- [36:14]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Yeah, it's absolutely. And they even sometimes decide on a price prior to planting so they know what their income's going to be.
- [36:21]
John Brucato
So what do you feel your anticipated effects on students who are really reliant on school meals every day? We've talked a lot about all of this, kind of working behind the scenes to bring a better procurement process and a better product to school districts. But what are you seeing as the direct impact on kids?
- [36:38]
Dr. Katie Wilson
I think the direct impact on kids is that every single child, irregardless of income, social status, it doesn't matter where you live in this country, you deserve a healthy meal at school. And I think that the kids will benefit because, first of all, they're going to see a variety of foods. There's a wide variety, and many of those foods are grown right around them, and they don't even realize it. They are also getting to know what it's like to produce food. And so part of this on the other side is not necessarily directly with our cooperative agreement, but a thing we work on a lot is to reduce food waste in schools. It's really a huge issue. But as kids begin to realize who it is that produces that food, how that food is produced, of course they're going to love seeing all these, all this variety and exposes them to lots of different kinds of food. They're going to benefit from that nutritionally. But I really believe that the waste is going to go down as well because they have. They see value in it. It's putting food back into the value system of which we all should be believing in to begin with. So there's nothing but benefit for these kids because we're getting the best, freshest food possible into their school systems.
- [37:49]
John Brucato
And then what about the business office and the school business official? What is the direct benefit on them? I'm guessing a lower bottom line that they can kind of build their budgets a little bit more freely. But what can the school business official really anticipate from something like this?
- [38:04]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Certainly, we want them to see a lower bottom line. We want them to see that they get answers to bids. What happens to competition if they don't get answers to bids? It puts their school district in a very difficult position. I think there's probably not a business official in this country that wouldn't want to support their local economy. That's what schools do, right? They hire local people and they support their local economy. So to be able to say, look, this percentage of our dollars are going out back right here into the local economy. I also think schools are very interested in lowering their carbon footprint and doing something for the environment. And so there are calculations they can do for that. As well as they buy more local. But I think it's a win win for everybody. If we can really get this sorted out and they don't have that school food procurement, they're not all of a sudden thinking, oh no, we're not going to get a delivery for food. Where am I supposed to go to get food for these kids? Make it simpler, much easier, have some good, strong business partnerships that they can rely on because they have a whole lot of other things to worry about that we all know.
- [39:05]
John Brucato
Right, right. So where are those measures of success for you in the usda? Like what metrics are you using to identify that this program actually is doing what it's intended and how is that data being tracked?
- [39:18]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Well, I'm going to let Dottie talk about tracking data, but the final part of this, the final phase of this project is we have funding and we have permission to take some pilots of all different sized districts around the country and work with their local district, work with their school board, their business official, work with their state agency and the regional office of the USDA and literally rewrite a new school food business plan to then present to Congress and to usda. And so I think that that's going to be a real success story because we're going to gather all the information we've learned and say these are the best practices for the best price, the highest quality and be accountable in these school programs. So we're looking for districts of all sizes to do those pilots with us. But Dotty is doing all the metrics for us so she can talk a little bit about that.
- [40:05]
Dottie Arnold
Yeah, so first I wanted to talk a little bit more about how we're tracking what we talked about earlier, which is these pain points that were just kind of uncovered by all the folks on our national advisory board, which included school business officials. And so one way that we're doing that is we've created a pain point matrix which showcases all of the top points that were uncovered and then how those can be addressed through this project and whether they're complete, they're in progress, or if further work needs to be done. So by the end of this project, hopefully we'll have. I mean, we already have. The matrix is building and building and building and it will only continue to build. And so that's something that we're going to be continuously tracking for the project as a whole. We work really closely with the USDA to be submitting quarterly reports with them on the project progress, as well as a 60 day technical report after the in person national advisory meeting every year and a year end technical report, which encompasses the whole year of the project. And once the USDA signs off on those reports, they will always be published publicly on our webpage for the cooperative agreement. And so that's really a way that school business officials and anyone who's interested can have a tangible look at what's going on, what is being accomplished, what there is to come in the next year. And like we talked about earlier, whether or not they would be interested in joining one of our subcommittees and kind of become a part of that collaborative conversation. So those are some of the ways that we're tracking this project. And obviously once the results from Harvard's research are complete and we have that data and that information, all of that will also be a part of our are reporting.
- [41:50]
Dr. Katie Wilson
So our main goal is to really look at how do we simplify, how do we streamline. Every state has its own rules. It doesn't work when you're working with a national program and national food providers. So how do we put this all together so that it's in the best interest of the children and the communities that we serve with streamlining and simplifying this process.
- [42:13]
John Brucato
And to your point, each state has its own rules and regulations and there could be perceived equity issues amongst different states. Can you talk to me about how this program considers the issue of equity and access when it comes to school food service and really procurement as well?
- [42:29]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Yeah. You know, as far as equity and access is concerned, every single child, no matter where you live, deserves the best meal in school. We know that it's an important tool for success in the classroom to be well nourished. And so why not use local procurement and local our dollars in our school systems to support our local economies, but also to buy the best food possible for kids. And so when we talk about equity, we want to make sure that no matter whether you're rural, suburban or urban, you have the ability and the tools to do this efficiently without jumping through a bunch of different rules and regulations that really are not meant to buy food. Right. So that's where equity comes in, access comes in in the fact that every single child should get a meal. Every single child should be have access to a meal in their school system. And this is how we can do it. And that's by breaking down the challenges in school food procurement. Because as we've seen both through Covid and coming out of COVID that there are a lot of school districts across this country that are not getting people interested in delivering food to their schools. That's going to become an issue for access if we can't solve some of these problems.
- [43:47]
John Brucato
Right. So what's next? I mean, what's on the immediate horizon? There's a lot going on. I mean, you have a new administration coming in in January. I mean, there's plenty that can affect what this project is looking to accomplish. So what do you feel is really next on the horizon for everything we spoke about today?
- [44:04]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Well, I think what's next on the horizon is we have a new Congress as well. So there's a lot of education. We can't lobby, but we can educate. And so to really educate all those people coming in, I don't know anybody from either side of the aisle that doesn't want to feed kids and feed kids well and support their local economy. And so I think that there's a lot of support for these programs. And so education has to be the start. Here are the challenges. We're going to have to push back on some of the things that are going on, even at the state level. Do we need to talk to governors about these are the rules your state is issuing, why it doesn't make sense when it comes to school food. It's not helping your state agriculturally either. And so thinking about all of those pieces and trying to educate as many of the newcomers as possible on what these programs are, what they mean to kids and families, and then how they help boost economies across this country, because even the USDA Foods program buys 100% American. So all those American producers are benefiting from school nutrition programs and children participating in their school nutrition programs. So we'll take a look at the new administration for sure, the new people in Congress. And we'll start by just beginning that educational piece, but also looking at what are the new partnerships we can develop. Partnerships like ASBO International, other partnerships. We have a really strong partnership now with the national association of State Departments of Agriculture. That's a new partnership for us to talk to them about what are the needs they have and how does it operate? How do things operate in their states that we could help boost this and use school food programs as one of those sort of catalysts to a stronger agricultural marketplace in their state. So lots to do whenever there's a new administration, but we'll never let go of the focus, and that is to make sure that each kid is fed well and has access to good food in schools.
- [46:04]
John Brucato
That's great. And if a listener today is really inspired by what we've been talking about, how can school business officials, school districts, really get involved to kind of help move this along?
- [46:14]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Well, we definitely have subcommittees. They can go to that landing page and put their name in there into that where they can do suggestions. And we would welcome anybody to those subcommittees. Like I said, they always meet virtually. But we have one for state agencies, one for other stakeholders. We have one for school food authorities. So definitely get involved, have your piece, have your say and know and keep track of what's going on. But otherwise, individually, there's a donate button on our website, so we're always looking for donations as well because, you know, the cooperative agreement only goes so far for some of this work. And then we are, we definitely have outside funders as well that help us move this style forward to get good food in schools.
- [46:55]
John Brucato
Well, this has been a really fascinating conversation and really sounds promising for the future of school food service and food procurement. Katie and Dotty, I can't thank you enough for carving out a little bit of time to speak with me today. And I really look forward to seeing how this partnership and how this initiative really works out in the future. So best of luck and thanks again for speaking with me.
- [47:15]
Dr. Katie Wilson
Thank you. Appreciate the attention to this. Thanks, thanks.
- [47:20]
John Brucato
Thank you for tuning in to School Business Insider. Make sure to check back each week for your favorite topics on school business.