Strategic buying puts Harwood district at the head of the class for local food purchases
June 21, 2024 | By Lisa Scagliotti Some savvy shopping and buying has helped the food service program in the Harwood Unified Union School District qualify for state grant funding to help pay for its student meals.
A case of ground beef in a school cafeteria comes from the Neill Farm in Waitsfield. Photo courtesy Harwood Schools Food & Nutrition
The state Agencies of Education and Agriculture, Food and Markets last week recognized the six districts around the state with the highest rates of local food purchases through the Local Foods Incentive Grant program created in 2021.
The Harwood Unified Union School District ranked second-highest for purchasing local foods. It increased its local food purchases from 14% of its total purchases in the 2021-22 school year to 23% during the 2022-23 school year, according to the state announcement. It was only surpassed by the Windham Northeast district which bought 31% of its food locally last year, according to state officials.
Erika Dolan, co-director of Harwood’s Food and Nutrition program, said she was very happy to see that a shift in the district’s approach to food purchasing led to the larger portion of its food coming from local sources.
“We started by strategically placing our USDA Foods order to not include items that we could purchase locally – like raw ground beef and shredded cheddar cheese,” Dolan said. “With some extra work ensuring that the items we were purchasing meet the local requirements, an additional expenditure coding, and a different business mindset we hit the 23% mark in FY 22-23!”
Pesto and red sauce pizzas for lunch. Photo courtesy Harwood Schools Food & Nutrition
In announcing the progress school districts are making toward incorporating more local foods – from maple syrup to vegetables and meats – into student meals, state officials noted that the combined efforts of schools, farms, community partners, and the state are helping to boost both the economy and food access across the state.
Vermont Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts said the state is grateful to all the schools offering local Vermont products in their cafeterias. “Fresh local food is great for students and supports our farmers and producers. These partnerships between education and agriculture are important because they grow our economy while offering nutritious meals to students.”
The Local Foods Incentive Grant program assists school districts in purchasing Vermont-sourced foods with grants tied to the proportion of local foods they use. Districts that purchase at least 15% of their food locally will receive a grant award ranging from $0.15 to $0.25 per lunch served, depending on their local purchasing percentage. (Schools purchasing 15% of their food locally receive 15 cents per meal; those purchasing 20% receive 20 cents, etc.) The grants generally range between $20,000 and $40,000, state officials said.
In the most recent grant round, 20 districts applied for the Local Foods Incentive grant and six exceeded the 15% benchmark to qualify, state officials said. In addition to Windham Northeast and Harwood Union, the other districts and their local purchasing percentages were: Mountain Views Supervisory Union and Mount Abraham each with 21%, Addison Northwest with 20%, and Lamoille North with 17%.
Overall, the six school districts purchased over $614,000 of local food and received grant funding of just over $170,000, according to the announcement.
Dolan explained that grant applications are made at the end of the calendar year based on purchasing and meal data from the prior school year. The grant Harwood receives in 2024 was from local food purchased and meals served in the 2022-23 school year, Dolan explained.
Tri-color roasted carrots. Photo courtesy Harwood Schools Food & Nutrition
This was the first year Harwood qualified for the grant because in 2021-22, the first year the grant program was in place, the district did not reach the 15% minimum for local purchases. Exceeding 20% last year was a significant achievement, Dolan said. Not only did the program carefully choose suppliers, “we were analyzing every single invoice,” she said, in an effort to accurately track the details to include in the application.
The bottom line: In 2022-23, the Harwood district bought $228,226.58 of food and $69,144.21 of that was spent on local purchases. That resulted in a state grant award of $37,544.40, Dolan said. That was a significant increase over the 2021-22 school year that did not qualify for the grant; the district's local share that year was just $33,848.27 of a total of $210,564.49, she said.
Dolan said the program is still evolving and has strict requirements for food producers to qualify. Some purchases, she noted, may come from Vermont sources but may not be part of the program yet. Given that, she said Harwood’s actual share of “local” ingredients in its meal program exceeds the 23% documented for the grant.
Tebbetts noted that as the program continues, it’s building data to track trends in local food purchasing. For example, 13 school systems applied for the state grant the past two years. Comparing their year-over-year figures, their efforts to boost local purchasing increased their collective local spending 32%, from just over $730,000 in the 2022-23 school year to over $963,000 in 2023-24, the state announcement noted.
Interim Secretary of Education Zoie Saunders remarked that programs such as the local food grants make Vermont’s education system unique. In addition to providing nutritious meals for Vermont students, she said, they add to students’ “learning about the local landscapes and economies while deepening their understanding and connection to the state.” Those connections help prepare today’s youth to become “the future stewards of Vermont,” Saunders said.
Another element of the local foods program involves nonprofit organizations involved in farm-to-table efforts such as NOFA-VT, Shelburne Farms, Green Mountain Farm Direct, and Hunger Free Vermont. The nonprofits have helped connect farm food producers with school district customers, state officials noted.
Breakfast options at Harwood. Photo courtesy Harwood Schools Food & Nutrition