By Tom Brewton & Kristen Thompson

Stephanie Gates became the Food Service Director of the Bennington Rutland Supervisory Union (BRSU) in February 2021. She reached out to us in September 2021 with a strong interest in sourcing local foods for her students.

Our first delivery was in October 2021 to Flood Brook School. Since then, Stephanie has ordered an assortment of local meats, fruits, vegetables, and prepared foods.

Once we launched our new customer route throughout Southwest Vermont, we reached more BRSU schools and began making deliveries to Manchester Elementary Middle School. We now provide local products for all BRSU schools monthly:

• Flood Brook School

• Mettawee Community School (delivered to Currier Memorial School)

• Currier Memorial School

• Manchester Elementary Middle School

• Dorset School

• Sunderland Elementary School (delivered to and prepared by Manchester Elementary Middle School)

By the end of the 2021-2022 school year, Stephanie had ordered products from thirteen Food Connects producers, including Boyden Farm beef, Green Mountain Orchards apples, Champlain Orchards plums, Shri Bark muffins and rounds, Allen Brothers Farm salad mix, and Czajkowski Farm carrot sticks. She especially enjoyed Boyden Farm’s ground beef and patties and has continued to purchase these two products monthly throughout the 2022-2023 school year, along with many others.

We talked to Stephanie to learn more about her work to promote local food through BRSU meal programs in partnership with Food Connects.

How are you able to promote local foods in your foodservice program across the district?

I promote local foods on the menu and on our website. We use fliers. I would love to do even more outreach in the future.

What made you decide to work with Food Connects?

I’ve known about Food Connects for a long time from my previous employment. I was hoping working with Food Connects would be a way to connect local into some of my schools when I started working with BRSU. 

Working with Tom [at Food Connects] has definitely worked out great. When we started out, we had Food Connects working with one school; now, you’re delivering to four, which is great.

What products have been successful so far?

The beef is definitely successful in our district. I love that it is not only a local product, but the blue label that I order is antibiotic and hormone free. The students love the carrots. This month we ordered beets and winter squash which was for Harvest of the Month, and those were wonderful products. It’s nice having local. I do try to order local through the [big distributor we work with], as well, but it’s nice having this connection. Tom has been a huge help with ordering, and I couldn’t be doing as much as I am without him. He’s been a huge asset to me in bringing local food to my schools.

We heard you talked with our Food Hub Institutional Sales Associate, Tom Brewton, about the Vermont Harvest of the Month. How do you incorporate the Harvest of the Month into your programs?

I incorporate Harvest of the Month into our menus monthly, but we also put them on the fresh fruit and veggie bar. We do taste tests at Flood Brook School, and a farm to school committee tries to incorporate Harvest of the Month into as many of our programs as possible. Flood Brook has a great on-site garden and tries to get as much into the school as possible, which is awesome.

Why are you interested in having regionally-sourced foods in your cafeteria?

Using local products supports our economy and community, and that’s what it’s all about—community and making sure that we’re as sustainable as we can be in schools, just as we need to be at home. It’s important all the way around. 

This is my second year in this position. In my first year, I backed away from local because I was new, but this year, I have applied for the local foods incentive grant in hopes of sourcing 15% of our budget with local products. I’ve kind of jumped in, sourcing honey, maple syrup, and more locally.

How has the continuation of Universal School Meals in Vermont impacted your students and meal programs?

Universal School Meals are very important, and eating is part of your school day. It shouldn’t cost kids money to eat breakfast and lunch. I came from a school district with CEP (that’s Community Eligibility Provision—a federal program offering free meals based on community numbers) and saw a huge difference in the students participating and the freedom they felt going up to get food. I saw numbers increase here in the BRSU this year, too. Whether you’re a student who needs universal meals or not, it’s a stress reliever for kids. It takes the stigma away.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with us?

I think that the relationship that BRSU has developed with Food Connects has really brought us to levels that we wouldn’t be able to get to with local food if Food Connects wasn’t working with us. I really appreciate that Food Connects expanded its route to accommodate most of the BRSU schools.

If we don’t have deliveries from Food Connects—most of which are for fresh products, local sourcing and delivering are done by the Food Services Director or the kitchen managers. This adds a lot of challenges to using local products in our schools. Therefore, we definitely appreciate what Food Connects does for this district.