[In the popular imagination, vegan school lunch may seem like the
exclusive provenance of big cities like New York, but the tide appears
to have shifted significantly in much of the country. ]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

THE VEGAN SCHOOL LUNCH  
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Jesse Hirsch
December 2, 2023
Ambrook Research
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_ In the popular imagination, vegan school lunch may seem like the
exclusive provenance of big cities like New York, but the tide appears
to have shifted significantly in much of the country. _

Hundreds of school districts have started offering plant-based
alternatives in recent months — what’s behind the shift, and what
do these meals look like?, Graphic by Ali Aas

 

Just five years ago, the U.S. school lunch landscape was still pretty
stuck in its traditional, meat-forward past — think burgers, chicken
tenders, pepperoni pizza. Dominic Machi, who spent decades as director
of food nutrition services at the Mount Diablo School District in
northern California, said the notion of serving plant-based meals was,
at best, a blip on the radar. At worst, it was something actively
resisted by parents and school staff.

“I remember we tried serving some vegan chicken nuggets and the kids
loved them, said they were better than McDonald’s,” Machi said.
“But we had some workers who refused to serve [the nuggets] because
they were nervous, weren’t sure what was in them, if it was safe or
healthy for the kids.”

Now it’s 2023, and the memory feels distant, quaint even. In the
U.S., the retail market for plant-based foods has topped $8 billion
and continues to grow annually. Meat alternatives are ubiquitous at
Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy’s — McDonald’s even launched a
line of “McPlant” offerings. And hundreds of school districts
across the country are now offering a range of vegan and vegetarian
entrees, once unheard of in the staid confines of public school meals.

“We’ve seen a lot of cultural shifts, and I think that’s the
driving force,” said Machi, who launched a bakery called Dos
Pisano’s this year, focused on providing vegan and vegetarian
options to schools. “We have millennials that are parents now, with
a whole different set of priorities than their parents had for
them,” he said.

Reports also indicate that even moderate shifts in meat consumption
can have significant climate impacts. Machi added, “[Today’s
students] are more environmentally conscious, they’re more
health-conscious. We also have a huge influx in the United States of
students from Asia and other parts of the world, who were raised in
cultures that don’t allow meat.”

Kristie Middleton, who spent years in sometimes-frustrating school
nutrition advocacy work before joining plant-based company Rebellyous
Foods, is amazed by the rapid cultural shifts she‘s witnessed. For
instance, Middleton recently attended a state meeting of the Indiana
School Nutrition Association.

“I was an exhibitor at the show, and was really impressed by the
number of people stopping by the booth, willing to try our products
— a few years ago, that never would have happened,” said
Middleton, Rebellyous’ vice president of business development.
“This is Indiana, a state with a lot of traditional farming, a big
dairy state, but we didn’t hit any resistance. These days I don’t
even have to do a lengthy pitch on why plant-based makes sense; most
people are very familiar!”

To satisfy the burgeoning school district demand, plant-based
companies like Rebellyous, Dos Pisano’s, and Better Chew have been
muscling into the market. Seattle-based Rebellyous in particular has
pursued an ambitious path to the institutional foods space, pitching
their products to schools, hospitals, corporate cafeterias, and
military bases; their plant-based chicken alternatives are now served
in 202 school districts around the country.

In the popular imagination, vegan school lunch may seem like the
exclusive provenance of big cities like New York, where Meatless
Mondays were enacted in 2019, or progressive bastions like Berkeley
and Boulder. And while communities like these may have been early
embracers of plant-based school food, the tide appears to have shifted
significantly in much of the country.

Nora Stewart, who works on California school food initiatives with the
advocacy organization Friends of the Earth (FOE), believes a lot of
the momentum and increased demand for plant-based options is
student-driven. Gen Z has received much attention for its vegan
leanings; these trends appear to be shifting younger and younger.
“School districts are really trying to feed the students that they
serve,” said Stewart. “There’s been just a tremendous interest
from students for more plant-based options. So I think [districts] are
trying to meet that need, as well as address the growing interest
around the climate impacts of plant-based options, and the health
benefits as well.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), long the arbiter of
acceptable school nutrition, has been shifting its dietary
requirements, with an eye toward serving more of both culturally
appropriate and vegetarian items. Frank Castro, director of child
nutrition services for California’s Dublin School District, said
roughly 60 percent of his district is Asian (including a significant
Indian population); he thinks districts like his helped USDA broaden
their approach to acceptable school meals.

“A lot of the kids here are very menu-savvy,” Castro said. “You
know, more vegetarian, more vegetables and fruits, more things made
from scratch. We’ve been able to experiment more with that here,
where maybe some of the other districts didn’t.”

Castro hits on a distinction between his district and many others —
the ability to cook from scratch. Lacking full kitchen setups, but
with a need to serve hundreds of students each day, many schools are
looking for simple heat-and-serve options. That’s where Rebellyous
has been able to thrive: The company’s plant-based “chicken”
nuggets and tenders are peak simplicity. Rebellyous CEO Christie
Lagally said students rate them highly in side-by-side nugget taste
tests.

But despite positive feedback from kids, there are other boxes to
check before a product can be served in schools, like does it contain
enough protein to be considered an entree, and does it meet the
district’s budgetary needs — often under $2 per meal. Lagally said
that many of the buzzier meat alternatives — think Impossible or
Beyond Meats — actually have a higher price point than real meat.

“If you’re familiar with plant-based meat, about 90 percent is
made in meat processing facilities using meat processing equipment,”
she said. “So all that wonderful equipment that we designed for
processing animals, is also being used to process plant-based meat,
much to its detriment. When you use off-the-shelf meat processing
equipment to make plant-based meat, you end up with having to use the
equipment for three times as long, three times as much labor.”

Additionally, companies like Impossible have taken heat for being
highly processed, containing too many additives, and essentially for
being just as unhealthy — if not worse — than their meaty
counterparts.

Lagally said her team, largely engineers, built production equipment
from scratch, specifically tailored to produce soy-based chicken. The
goal was efficiency and consistency, and though the company doesn’t
employ official chefs or culinary advisors, Lagally said their sales
are the best proof of a quality product.

Conversely, some advocates would prefer if foods with less processing
and more sustainable ingredients could find a foothold in school
lunches. Rebellyous also uses traditionally farmed soy as its main
ingredient, a global commodity with its own climate issues.

“Our position is that, rather than promote the fake meat meals, we
generally encourage schools to incorporate entrees that use whole,
plant-based ingredients — which is beans, lentils, and tofu — in
their menus,” said Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director of food and
agriculture at FOE. “Don’t get me wrong: We don’t oppose
[processed meat substitutes]. We understand that there’s a role for
easy-serve items for school districts that don’t have scratch
cooking facilities. But we definitely … want to help get school
districts more support and funding to provide whole plant-based meals
to their students.”

Hamerschlag and others interviewed noted that the flood of federal
funding to provide universal school lunch during Covid was certainly a
factor in encouraging district experimentation and broader menu
options. Some states have followed up with funding of their own to
keep the pandemic menu expansions going. California in particular has
received accolades for allotting $100 million toward promoting
plant-based and sustainable food options in its schools.

Despite all the momentum, Hamerschlag and her colleagues feel like
there’s still a lot of work to be done. Plenty of school districts
are getting pushback for a lack of vegan options (see this op-ed from
a Maryland high school student); the fight to include plant-based
dairy alternatives is just beginning; a large portion of school
lunches still incorporate highly processed meat products; and USDA’s
nutrition guidelines haven’t fully caught up with the plant-forward
future.

“Take tofu, for instance. [USDA] requires that you have to offer 4.4
ounces of tofu to qualify as an alternate protein source, which is
just a very large portion. You can serve a much smaller portion of
chicken to meet that requirement, so that’s what a lot of school
districts are going to do,” Hamerschlag said. “And that’s just
one example, maybe a result of meat industry lobbying, maybe just
outdated guidelines. But USDA is still taking comments on its proposed
nutrition updates, and we’ve already had a lot of luck in achieving
our goals. We’re hopeful.”

Jesse Hirsch is editor of Ambrook Research. He has spent years working
as a journalist focused on food and agriculture, most recently as
managing editor at The Counter. His work has appeared in The New York
Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, Bon
Appétit, Eater, and other outlets.

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* school lunch
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* USDA
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* meat
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