What’s for School Lunch?
This month, featuring a new school meal event from our Office of Facilities and Operations School Food Services Branch.
To help increase local menu offerings in school lunches, three dozen public schools on Hawai‘i Island, Maui, Kaua‘i, and Moloka‘i offered fresh local poi as an accompanying lunch menu item to students and staff this month in honor of May Day.
Across the participating schools, over 11,800 individual 4-ounce poi cups from Hanalei Poi Company and their Hanalei farmer suppliers — equating to nearly 3,000 pounds of poi — were served.
The Department’s farm-to-school initiative aims to enhance food sustainability in Hawai‘i and aligns with Act 175, which focuses on improving the health of students while supporting local farmers.
Last year the Department rolled out its first offering of fresh local poi in over a decade to O‘ahu schools, serving over 23,000 4-ounce servings from Pomai Kulolo LLC. Due to procurement limitations, participating O‘ahu schools this year incorporated local u‘ala (sweet potato) into their lunch menus in lieu of poi.
To help facilitate student education leading up to this poi event, the Department held a series of meetings with leaders of the Farm to School Network and Garden to School Network, aiming to educate teachers on how to use taro as a tool to positively influence nutritious eating patterns and to enhance connectivity with neighboring farmers who grow taro, sweet potato and breadfruit.
The Department is the state’s largest institutional consumer of food products, serving over 100,000 student meals a day and continues to work closely with local vendors statewide to see how fresh local produce can be scaled across all schools in the future on a regular basis. Read more here.
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Mahalo to Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle’s cafeteria helper Wil Beamer; cafeteria helper, Kae Nakagawa; school food services manager, Anthony Cruz; cook, Sandy Bercasio; school food services branch Kaua‘i district supervisor, Robert Segundo; and baker, Jerold Constantino (pictured left to right), for inviting us into their kitchen. |
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