Private restaurants and operators are getting involved in the public sector lately. How? By teaming up with school cafeterias and helping to shape the future of the way America eats.
Restaurants and other private food service companies are becoming more and more involved in the nation’s schools. Everyone from restaurant chains to individual chefs are getting involved childhood obesity becomes more and more of a problem.
Wellness in Schools – A New York City Program
“Food is going to look different 20 years from now,” say Nick Marsh, chief executive of Chop’t Creative Salad Co., a 14-store chain in New York. “There has to be some level of responsibility from those of us in the foodservice business.”
Marsh’s company was on the ground floor as an original sponsor for Wellness in the Schools. Wellness in the Schools has as its main objective the evolution of school food. The program aims to change students’ views of food so that they will make healthier life choices. Marsh’s Chop’t Creative provides the program with $25,000 of its funding every year.
The Obama Administration’s Chefs Move to Schools Program
Sam Kass is senior policy advisor for healthy food initiatives; he is also a White House assistant chef. He recently spoke at the national convention of the American Culinary Association about President Obama’s Chefs Move to Schools program and the Let’s Move Campaign.
First Lady Michelle Obama began more enthusiastically backing the programs after discovering some disturbing statistics about American health. Specifically, she was spurred into action by the fact that one-third of American children are now classified as obese.
Chefs Move to Schools is designed to pair up public schools with professional chefs – 25,000 schools and 27,000 chefs have signed up for the program already! It will be the chefs’ job to help educate children about food and re-shape the way the future of our nation thinks about what it eats.
While this may seem like no easy task, Kass spoke about an even tougher goal for our chefs: Making vegetables fun for kids! Tough as that may sound, if 27,000 American chefs can’t do it, nobody can!
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