27Feb 2025 by admin

Recap: School Food Supplier Workshop

On January 22, 2025, Land to Table Network hosted a School Food Supplier Workshop in Vernon, sponsored by FeedBC. This full-day event aimed to connect local food suppliers with school food purchasers from districts across the Okanagan and Columbia/Shuswap regions. We were fortunate to have ‘all the players’ in the room – from School District administration and school meal coordinators, government, non-profits (i.e. meal program providers), food suppliers/distributors, chefs, caterers, and farmers!

The day consisted of group brainstorming using a World Café model to gather feedback across sectors on key concerns related to procuring and supplying school food – creating a clear picture of the landscape we are all operating within. 

A school food coordinator panel featured representatives from school districts 67, 22, 83, 19, and 6, who shared their experiences, challenges, and dreams, organizing school food programs across diverse districts and schools. Representatives from FeedBC, Farm to School BC, and Land to Table shared information about available resources and capacity support for school food programs. The event also included networking opportunities, supplier showcases, and, of course, sampling of delicious food provided by various caterers, producers, and community organizations—all with the goal to showcase local food options for schools, generate  ideas and create connections for local supply. 

“Ultimately, this was a room of folks excited to understand each other’s perspectives (from farmer to distributor, chef, to student), coming to the table to address issues, and find ways to work together to get more local, nutritious food to our K-12 students” – Liz Blakeway, L2T ED

The attendee feedback from the School Food Supplier Workshop underscored a shared commitment to increasing access to nutritious, local food in schools while addressing key challenges such as funding (cost per meal versus nutritional value), fragmented ordering, affordable distribution, and capacity to collaborate. The following highlights some of what we heard during the day.

The Perfect School Meal

“We all seem to have a common goal: getting quality foods into the bellies of our youth.” – Mitch Lukinuk, Just Food

We asked school district food coordinators and supporting food security organizations to imagine the “perfect school meal”. Participants shared the following:

  • The food is colourful and appealing to students
  • Affordable, whole, nutritious ingredients from local suppliers (e.g. Half a plate of vegetables, fruit cup, hand bowl of fresh soup)
  • Options: Pre-prepared vs. hot fresh
  • Made with love 
  • Students get to be part of the process of cooking or serving meals
  • There is an education or food literacy component that connects students to the food system
  • Given current budget constraints, realistically each meal would cost between $1.50-$6.50 max (e.g. a bag lunch costs $3.50 (not including delivery/staff)
  • Student-sized portions, so there is no waste
    • Students can always come back for more
    • Or grazing style, so students can take the portion they want
  • There are dietary and culturally appropriate options for each student demographic
  • Currently, students don’t have a lot of time to eat, so the meal has to be quick and easy to serve and eat. Ideally, we will shift to having more time to share a meal – for students to eat lunch together.

Food Literacy Opportunities

One of the main focuses of the day was the need for more food literacy opportunities in schools. The group emphasized the need for the next generation to understand their role in the food system, and how their agency within the system is connected to environmental, social, economic, political, and cultural issues and topics. Sometimes the scope of food literacy can feel daunting, and teachers are already overwhelmed trying to make it through basic physical and health curriculum. This means it is imperative that school staff have access to resources, education, and support that make food literacy topics and conversations accessible, and easy to have with their students. Community partnerships are key in building schools’ capacity to offer food literacy programs. See resource and contact list below for food literacy support. 

Bulk Procurement and Centralized Ordering

“There is a desire for collaboration in the local food space.” – Quentin Randall, Farm to School BC

In order for local suppliers to meet the needs of schools at affordable prices, they need to be able to bulk produce and distribute food, which requires districts to unify and ideally centralize ordering, such that  all the schools purchase the same items during a given week. This would allow suppliers to negotiate better prices. When asked what items multiple districts would be willing to bulk purchase, potentially together, the school districts emphasized the need for handheld, nutritious snacks that are easy to pass out, including: 

  1. Single serving fruit and vegetables 
  2. Nut-free nutritious granola bars
  3. Cheese strings
  4. Single servings of yogurt
  5. Single servings of milks
  6. Ready-to-eat or, heat-and-serve breakfast wraps or sandwiches
  7. Eggs
  8. Sliced bread, bagels, and/or english muffins

Additional considerations for suppliers are:

  • What is the most competitive price to volume ratio they can offer schools?
  • Can they deliver their food to individual schools in districts (who do not have centralized storage)?
  • Can they offer different single serving snacks for kindergarteners versus a student in grade 8 (e.g. chopped fruit vs whole fruit)

Increase School Food Funding

“There is no one-size-fits-all school food program. There are funding limitations to providing local food for universal stigma-free programs, but people want to collaborate.” – Linda Boyd, Interior Health Public Health Dietician

One of the main benefits of hosting the School Food Supplier Event, was to create a shared understanding between suppliers and schools that despite receiving funding for school food, the schools are only supported to feed 20% of the student body. As schools strive to provide universal, stigma-free, nutritious, and local food, this budget is not adequate to achieve all of these values. The attendees brainstormed ways the community could support additional access to funds for school meal programs, including:

  • Local businesses can sponsor students’ meals
  • If producers and meal providers can offer lower prices at larger volumes, they can work with schools to secure purchasing contracts or commitments
  • Create CSA programs (food boxes to school parents) as fundraisers, where a portion of the funds go back to the schools toward food purchasing
  • PACS can help sell CSA boxes for local farmers and keep a portion of the profits (e.g. PACS could pack and distribute boxes themselves)
  • Farms and meal providers (e.g. non profit charitable organizations) can raise money to grow products or prep meals for schools.
  • If a supplier is delivering food to schools and also selling to the public, they can create a “tip” feature on their platform to go towards offsetting the cost of food for schools.
  • If school meal providers can receive seconds, or imperfect produce, they can access food at lower costs. 
  • Ideally, we can work with the BC Coalition for Healthy School Food to lobby for universal school meal programming (so ALL students have access to food at school)

Tracking BC Foods: Part of the Feeding Futures Initiative

“I love that I met so many local food providers. As always in these groups, I am inspired to provide more nutritious, local, delicious food to the students in my district.” – Celes Lucius, SD19 food coordinator

One of the challenges of the Feeding Futures Initiative is tracking B.C. Food. It is easier for suppliers, who know food origin, to build that information into their velocity or sales reports, than to ask school district staff to find those details after making a purchase.  Below are some resources and ideas from the group to better integrate tracking into school food programs.

  • Many suppliers can label their B.C. food products so when they generate Square or Quickbooks invoices, that information is shared to school districts. 
  • For suppliers who distribute a large variety of items, who do not have capacity to add the origin of every item to their systems, these efforts could be taken just for the select products that schools source the most often. Providing this service makes the supplier even more valuable to schools. 
  • B.C. Food reports from suppliers could be generated annually and broken down by school to streamline reporting and provide valuable data for coordinators. 
  • Ask your supplier for an excel sheet (rather than a receipt) with the necessary tracking information.
  • There is an opportunity to turn tracking into a food literacy exercise. You can teach students how to find food origin on packaged products and teach the importance of knowing where your food comes from.
  • Working with small local farmers makes tracking B.C. food easy, since all food grown on the farm is 100% B.C. food. 
  • There are some products that are not produced or processed in B.C. There could be an opportunity to do research and development with local producers to make these local food products.

All suppliers should refer to the Feed BC Tracking Resource for more information on tracking BC Foods. 

Feed BC Tracking Resource (PDF)

Opportunities for Next Steps:

Improve School Food Culture

  1. Lean on your community for food systems expertise, hands-on learning and cooking opportunities, and exposure to community food (multi)culture!
    It can be challenging to balance students’ food preferences with expanding food taste. Ensuring students eat food they enjoy, while also expanding their knowledge and palates, requires engaging and exciting food literacy tools that make new and unfamiliar foods enticing. Engaging students in the different phases of the food system, and involving them in the process of growing, harvesting, cooking, and serving food can create a special connection between children and the foods they eat. Simple tag lines: “Don’t yuck my yum” (from SD83) can help. But schools are not expected to carry the burden of improving school food culture on their own. Some ideas generated from the group include:
    • Amplify the expertise and passion of school food coordinators, food security coordinators, and farmers, who can develop and/or deliver food education programs
    • Take students and staff on field trips to farms and orchards
    • Engage community organizations for extracurricular activities or field trips for students to engage with different aspects of our food system (e.g. community gardens, newcomer engagement, community kitchens, food banks, meal programs, seniors social meals, etc.)
    • Collaborate with local and provincial food security organizations to develop programming and apply for funding (we are here to help)
    • Use technology to receive student input for food and meal preferences and learning opportunities.
  1. Ensure staff, volunteers, and parents also have food literacy education opportunities.
    • Share food literacy resources that have already been developed 
    • Make food literacy education tools accessible and approachable for those who may not be familiar with food systems or food skills (e.g. Develop a “Talking Tips for School Food Providers”)
    • Involve school (students, PACS, parents) in fundraising initiatives (especially if they will benefit from those funds directly)
    • Create clear messaging to parents so they can be supportive of changes at school, and they can advocate for a healthier school food environment 
  1. Advocate to decision making bodies for more school food support
    • Advocate to local governments for more money to support the values of local, nutritious food
    • Create and/or join school food advisory committees at the district level to support policy change for the school food environment
    • Advocate for designated space and more time for students to eat
    • Make sure school food or meal providers services are in alignment with the districts food values and culture
    • Make sure to communicate with suppliers the needs and challenges of schools as unique purchasers. This can help suppliers adapt to service school food programs.

Organize Distribution

  • Use shared distribution, smaller pre-existing networks (instead of starting from scratch)
  • Highlight multiple distribution options to account for highway closures or disruptions

Discuss Shared Administration

  • How can we organize administration across multiple districts for bulk, centralized ordering? Whose role will it be?

School Food Contacts and Resources

Land to Table Network Society

Liz Blakeway, L2T Executive Director
liz@landtotablenetwork.com
Sammy Blair, L2T Food Security Manager
hello@landtotablenetwork.com

Resources and information on our regional food system and event recaps can be found at landtotablenetwork.com. If you are a school district, producer, or local meal provider in need of storage, distribution, or local food procurement support, contact Sammy at hello@landtotablenetwork.com to learn more about the Land to Table Warehouse.

Feed BC – B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Food

Sam Gambling, K-12 Institutional Market Specialist, Feed BC
Samantha.Gambling@gov.bc.ca

Resources and information on Feed BC in K-12 can be found on our website. For any questions about the Feed BC program, including support with sourcing and tracking B.C. foods for K-12 schools, please reach out to the Feed BC team at FeedBC@gov.bc.ca.

Farm to School BC

Quentin Randall, F2SBC Regional Coordinator (Interior)
interior@farmtoschoolbc.ca

Quentin is a Certified International Trade Professional who has worked with small rural businesses to sustainably grow their business in their communities. If you have a school food partnership idea and need support with the business plan or financial model, contact Quentin at interior@farmtoschoolbc.ca

Interior Health

Linda Boyd, Public Health Dietician
Linda.Boyd@interiorhealth.ca

IH public health dietitians offer food literacy resources, support for SD food policy and program development, and connections to Environmental Health Officers, community partners and the local food system. We can share needs with provincial contacts, identify opportunities for collaboration across Interior Health and BC, and advocate for programs and policies that support local food production at the local and provincial government level.

BC Dairy

“Schools want dairy products. How can BC Dairy support both schools and processors in achieving this? We are working on this.” – Erica Cahill, BC Dairy

With support from BC’s dairy farmers, BC Dairy’s team of registered dietitians have been developing nutrition education resources since the 1970’s. Their focus is on food education and building positive experiences with food for young learners. Food literacy is a term that is increasingly being discussed in education and public health circles. BC Dairy’s team supports young learners on their journey to develop food literacy skills with programs and resources that explore: How food is grown, produced, and made available; How to identify, plan, get, store, prepare, and eat a variety of foods; How to reflect on one’s food needs and resources; and the interconnection between food, culture, and identity. 

Access all of BC Dairy’s food literacy resources here.

Contact: nutrition@bcdairy.ca 

Additional Contacts

For a full list of all the attendees and suppliers present at the school food event, and their contact information, view the School Food Contact List. 

School Food Contact List (PDF)