Serving Garden Produce in Cafeterias

[Daniel Barrera Ortega]

Hi everyone,

As you know, October is Farm to School month, and school gardens are a pillar of the farm-to-school model. To that end, we're specifically interested in how folks are serving school garden-grown produce in their cafeterias.

Do you serve school garden-grown produce in your cafeteria? If so, what processes do you follow to make this possible? Are there forms or tracking do students, teachers, or cafeteria teams need to fill out?

If you're interested in creating or enhancing your garden-to-cafeteria pipeline, you can take a look at the Garden to Cafeteria Toolkit, created by Whole Kids and Slow Food USA. 

As a side note, we're launching into this topic with our upcoming webinar on 10/29, School-Based Garden to Cafeteria Programming!

Thank you!

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Daniel Barrera Ortega Program Specialist School Garden Support Organization (SGSO) Network (He/Him) www.sgsonetwork.org

[KAITLYN SCHEUERMANN]

Hi Everyone!

We have served garden produce as taste tests, but we have also incorporated it as an additional vegetable option in our meals.  Most often, we have taken lettuce grown by students in our hydroponic towers and served that for lunch.  Below is our SOP that we give to all garden leads to ensure that they know the proper food safety procedures to follow when growing and harvesting product.

 Using Produce From Gardens - Waukee SOP 2025 update

We have our staff record on their production records what they prepare and serve, just like any other vegetable we serve.  At this point in time, we have not formally tracked harvests from our indoor units, but we do *try* to track harvests from our garden spaces over the summer.  We have a QR code available for folks to scan that goes to a Google form that populates into a spreadsheet where we can organize the data.

If anyone has questions, reach out!

Thanks!

Kaitlyn Scheuermann, MPP-D, RDN, LD

Registered Dietitian Nutritionist

Certified ServSafe© Instructor-Proctor

Vince Meyer Learning Center

430 Ashworth Drive, Waukee, IA 50263

Entrance at intersection of 5th and Cherry Street

P 515.987.2719 x12730 | F 515.987.2701

waukeeschools.org 

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