Eat REAL

Transforming Food Systems With 200 Million REAL Meals

Model and Strategy

Eat REAL empowers school districts to make food delicious, nourishing, and climate-smart through its evidence-based Certification Program. The Certification Program – tested and refined over 10 years by scientists, medical doctors, and food service and agricultural professionals – focuses on farm-to-school infrastructure within school districts because school meals are one of the most effective and upstream levers to transform food production, distribution, and access at scale. Named a Fast Company 2020 World-Changing Idea, the Eat REAL Certified process supports a school district’s journey to bring transparency to its food program. Beginning with an in-depth assessment, Eat REAL partners closely with districts’ Food Service Directors, giving them the data, tools, education and technical assistance to shift school meals at every site in the entire district: improving the quality and nutritional value of every meal served; increasing the amount of regionally sourced, regeneratively produced whole foods; incorporating more culturally relevant items; reducing food waste; and deepening student, school staff, and community engagement with farm-to-school activities and values. The program is free of cost to qualifying public school districts. Eat REAL also guides districts and nutrition services professionals in developing relationships with one another, local and regional producers, nonprofits, and city, county, and regional government agencies and civic infrastructure in order to build effective coalitions that act in coordination to implement farm-to-school strategies across entire regions. Together with its coalition partners, Eat REAL works on upstream solutions to inspire policy changes at the state and local levels. Most recently, Eat REAL helped launch the School Meals For All Coalition of over 200 nonprofits that resulted in California passing Universal Free Meals, and advocated for Universal Free School Lunch waivers during Covid-19. As a member of the California Department of Food and Agriculture's California Farm to School Working Group, Eat REAL supported creation of a “Roadmap to Success” that offers a unified vision for the future of farm to school in California.

Impact

The Eat REAL Certification Program has proven its ability to support school leaders to make their food programs more delicious, nutritious, culturally relevant, and sustainable. One example is the Mt. Diablo Unified School District, whose Certification process was funded in part by Battery Powered in 2018. Since that time, Mt. Diablo has rewritten its procurement requests for proposals to incorporate a preference for locally-produced foods and food products. Today, over 1/3 of its total produce procurement is from local, small, midsized, and/or organic farms, including disadvantaged producers; that figure will continue to increase based on utilization of their new central warehouse and preparation facilities. A bit farther north, Vacaville Unified School District likewise is now sourcing the bulk of its produce locally; it has reduced added sugar offered by 5 lbs. per student and offers flavorful planet-friendly protein options. Eat REAL has grown 10x since 2019 and now partners with 14 school districts, training over 1,800 school nutrition services staff members to build farm-to-school infrastructure for the benefit of 334,000 students at 537 school sites. Over the next two years, the organization will expand that reach to 26 school districts in various stages of Certification progress – 18 in California and eight in MN, CO, TN, AR, MS – impacting 800 school cafeterias, transforming 200 million school meals, and ensuring that 620,000 K-12 students have the food equity they need to learn and thrive. With this, ~$100 million of school district food purchasing budgets will also be directed to support climate-smart, regenerative regional food systems.
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Leadership

  • Jordan

    Jordan Shlain, MD

    Board Member, Health Expert

  • Miguel

    Miguel Villarreal

    Board Member, K-12 Expert

  • Jiwon

    Jiwon Jun

    K-12 Program Manager

  • Beth

    Beth Seligman

    VP, Operations and Program

  • Raymond

    Raymond Lacorte

    VP, Culture and Infrastructure

  • Nora

    Nora LaTorre

    CEO