The new school meal patterns have required school food authorities across the country to get creative. We are finding new ways to plan menus that not only meet the new meal guidelines but also please the taste buds of students.

They said it couldn’t be done. Prepare meals from scratch. Done. Purchase locally grown foods.  Done. Add salad bars to every school. Done. Reduce sodium. Done. Develop a highly trained central production staff led by an Executive Chef, keep the budget in the black and maintain labor hours. Done, done and done. But it didn’t happen overnight!

Volcanic Meatloaf, Flew the Coop Tortilla Soup, Broccoli Monster Mash, and Pizza Green Beans are all on the menu in Idaho, thanks to a partnership with a local chef and dietitian creating a variety of chef-designed school lunch meals that are healthy and delicious.

It is a challenge to get teenagers to eat lunch at school. These cool, independent, fast-food connoisseurs often eschew the traditional school lunch line. But the nutrition services director and an executive chef have changed that dynamic at the high school in Union Public Schools in Tulsa, Oklahoma.