School Food Procurement

With over 30 million school lunches served every day, school food is big business. In School Food Procurement, we’ll discuss why procurement is so important in school food, and how to align your procurement practices with the mission and vision of your school meal program. We’ll look at how to use your menus to project procurement needs and how to write an effective Request for Proposal (RFP) to find the right vendor for your school food program. We’ll discuss the options for school food vendors and how to use USDA Foods, prime vendors, local purveyors and farmers to procure fresh, healthy, and local food for a scratch-cook operation. Throughout this course, you’ll learn procurement strategies that allow you to have more control over your ingredients and serve the highest quality food to your students.