Earlier this month, hundreds of school nutrition professionals from small and rural districts all over the country traveled to St. Louis for three-days’ worth of networking and idea sharing.
Named the Healthy Meals Summit, the event was part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Healthy Meals Incentives (HMI), an initiative that aims to help strengthen the supply chain and provide resources to schools looking to incorporate more scratch-made meals.
The USDA partnered with non-profit Action for Healthy Kids (AFHK) to bring the HMI to life. For AFHK Executive Officer and President Rob Bisceglie, working with the USDA on HMI was a no-brainer.
“I've been doing this work at Action for Healthy Kids for 16 years and we haven't seen another opportunity like this come around in all that time,” he says.
AFHK also teamed up with the Chef Ann Foundation and RMC Health to help oversee the initiative, which includes multiple summits (like the one in St. Louis) as well as a grant and recognition program for school nutrition operators.
Here’s a look at how Bisceglie and the team were able to provide a platform for operators to meet in-person and share their scratch-made meals successes and challenges.
Providing a place to connect
First and foremost, the goal of the St. Louis summit was to provide a space for grantees to get together, connect and share best practices.
Throughout the event, attendees could attend a variety of sessions and cooking demonstrations.
One of the standout sessions for Bisceglie was a panel that featured school foodservice operators speaking about the current challenges they’re facing at their district and how they are working to overcome them.
“They all had their unique strategy about how to best serve the kids in their own community,” he says.
Events like these are important for K-12 operators, Bisceglie says, especially for those who work in districts that are smaller or located outside major towns and cities.
“These are folks from small and rural communities, who don't get as many opportunities, unfortunately, to attend events like this,” he notes.
Taking it a step further
The Healthy Meals Summit in St. Louis was the first of three summits that Action for Healthy Kids is hosting through HMI. The next event is scheduled for this fall in Las Vegas and is meant to be an expansion of the St. Louis summit.
The target audience of this event will be school foodservice professionals who have received an HMI Recognition Award. Award winners are being provided with a travel stipend to attend the summit. The HMI Recognition Awards program is accepting applications through June 2025, however, operators who are interested in attending this fall’s summit must apply for an award before the end of June 2024 to be considered.
As Bisceglie and the team prepare for the Las Vegas summit, they are utilizing feedback from the first summit to direct the upcoming event’s content. One of the biggest asks from operators is to offer more in-depth sessions that take a closer look at how they can bring more scratch-made meals to students.
The AFHK team plans to work with The Chef Ann Foundation and RMC Health to find ways to provide sessions that meet those needs. Another key piece of the session content will center around having school nutrition professionals themselves share a detailed recap of their journey to offering scratch-made meals.
“They're doing the work every single day and the more we can put them up on a pedestal and allow them to share their successes, but also their strategies for overcoming some of those barriers, I think that is going to be a key part of our strategy for the next session,” says Bisceglie.