**major contributions by Lindsey Bradley from AISD

Thanks to the Farm Fresh Fridays initiative by the Texas Department of Agriculture, JBG and AISD have partnered for a little over two years now. Can you believe it? It feels like just yesterday when Mike Mo, our wholesale manager, was crunching numbers and seeing if the collaboration was even feasible. Farm Fresh Fridays is a way for Texans to celebrate the role that agriculture plays in our community’s overall well-being. As a direct result, it's also redefining cafeteria food. All kids at AISD schools enjoy entrees every Friday featuring JBG’s seasonal organic produce!

Lunch scenes at AISD. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Over 30 million students in our country rely on school meals every day, making the seemingly-humble school lunch a very important meal - and an opportunity for us as farmers. With farm-to-school efforts taking off around the country, school lunches provide an important access point to these kids, not only nourishing future generations and fostering healthy diets, but also introducing students to the food system, in general.

Acquainting some kiddos with a brussel sprout. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

AISD REVOLUTIONIZES LUNCHES

Last school year AISD introduced seasonal menus - fall, winter, spring - to offer more variety, introduce new recipes and offer seasonal produce when available. Talk about gourmet! This included Farm Fresh Fridays, in the fall they featured JBG sweet potatoes, in the winter, greens (like collards and kale) and spring, carrots. AISD is determined to expand food access, nutrition education and sustainability. AISD Executive Chef, Louis Ortiz, and his team work closely with the district dietitian to ensure that all recipes are compliant with USDA regulations. Additionally, the school system has created even stricter guidelines through a clean label initiative with the Life Time Foundation, where they committed to eliminating what the Foundation has identified as the Harmful 7, from their menus.

Perusing the school lunch options from a higher vantage point. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Speaking of AISD Executive Chef, Louis Ortiz... he joined the district with more than 20 years experience in restaurants, as an instructor at Le Cordon Bleu Texas Culinary Academy and as a culinary trainer for H-E-B Central Market. Since joining AISD, Louis has helped evolve the cafeterias into desired dining destinations. AISD has a greater focus on cooking from scratch, has introduced more global flavors + plant-based options and offers many hands-on training opportunities for kitchen team members to enhance their culinary skills.

Chef Louis Ortiz. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Not only does AISD utilize our veggies in their Farm Fresh Fridays, but also in their sampling events. Remember when Mike Mo and Ada ventured over to Perez Middle School for the National School Lunch Week baba ganoush tasting last October? Well, they also do a tasting event during Earth Week. They will be sampling JBG radishes districtwide during the week of April 16-20 in celebration of our fair planet Earth. The point of these samplings is to expose students to new foods and educate them on the local food system. It will be similar to the baba ganoush sampling, the only difference is they will be keeping it simple with just raw radishes, not included in a recipe.

Baba ganoush sampling. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Ada and Mike Mo settlin' up their tabs at AISD. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

The folks at AISD have been revolutionizing the way kids eat lunch. Augmenting seasonal prepared food menus with salad bars and even a small fleet of Nacho Average Food Trucks! The original trailer opened at Anderson High School in 2015; however, this one is stationary. AISD introduced their first mobile Nacho Average Food Truck last March and will be welcoming the second mobile truck this March. These mobile trucks rotate to a different AISD high school daily, currently serving breakfast tacos in the morning and a global nacho theme menu for lunch. They have a third truck coming later on this year that will be used for events, athletics concessions, etc. The Nacho Average Food Truck was named and the wrap design created by students at Anderson High School. As for salad bars, all AISD elementary, middle and high schools offer this option daily. Elementary schools offer a modified made-to-order, while middle and high schools offer self-serve options.

Tasting at the cafeteria. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

“A Feast for the Eyes”

Not only does AISD revolutionize palates, but also thought patterns around food with fun veggie-centric activities. This past October, AISD hosted a district-wide art contest as a celebration of National Farm to School Month. The guidelines encouraged elementary school students to create artwork honoring local farmers and the use of local produce in the school cafeteria. The students were asked specifically to focus on carrots since carrots from JBG will be provided this spring during Farm Fresh Fridays. The winning artwork is to be used as promotional signage and displayed in all cafeterias throughout the district during Farm Fresh Fridays. Kind of a big deal, right? The schools received over 200 submissions - and the three winners: McBee Elementary fifth-grader Zara Lopez-Pina placed first; her brother, McBee fourth-grader Javier Lopez-Pina, placed second; and Natividad Ignacio, a Jordan Elementary fourth-grader, placed third. Congrats to these artistic kiddos! Feast your eyes, and peruse the winning artwork below.

The winning artwork!

We are thrilled to continue this partnership for another year of nourishing the burgeoning minds of our younger Austin community. It’s truly fascinating and inspiring to see how AISD is changing the way that students dine on their watch. Keep eating your veggies, folks! ‘Til next time!