Local Roots: School Food is Growing Kids and Communities in San Luis Obispo
May 20, 2025
I’ve always had a deep appreciation for farms, ranchers, and locally grown food. Growing up, my dad was a rancher, farmer and hunter, and I was raised with a hands-on connection to the land. My passion for food and farming came full circle when I went on to study Agricultural Business at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo.
With my love for cooking and roots in agriculture, farm-to-table cuisine — which uses fresh, seasonal, and locally sourced ingredients — felt like a natural path. Working directly with local producers and serving our community was exactly where I wanted to be.
Early in my restaurant career, I was the sous chef at a fine dining restaurant that centered on a farm-to-table philosophy. Our menu changed daily based on what we grew in our gardens and what we could get from the farmers’ market. My time there sparked a deep love of seasonal, locally sourced ingredients and changed the course of my life.
As I developed my craft, I became an executive chef, a role that pushed my creativity and taught me to be resourceful and intentional about the ingredients I used. Over the years, I opened multiple restaurants, each committed to building strong relationships with local farmers and showcasing the best of what our region had to offer. Eventually, I managed a small restaurant group which earned a mention in the Michelin Guide in 2022.
When I started thinking about a career change after two decades in the restaurant industry, a friend told me to check out an opportunity at San Luis Coastal Unified School District. From the moment I met Erin Primer, the district’s food & nutrition services director, I could see we shared the same ideas.
Erin had the food services team preparing high-quality meals for 10,000 students every day. Similar to what I was doing in the restaurants, she focused on using farm-fresh products from local producers and keeping money in the community — but on a much larger scale. She even worked with a lot of the same local farmers I did. Erin also championed approaches that made the food program more inclusive for kids who might be experiencing food insecurity, which is an issue close to my heart. It was amazing to meet someone who was aligned with me on so many different things.
I was all in, so I joined the department and now, I’m part of an amazing team. Together, we’re elevating what school food can be, and we’re making life better for our kids and community.
I like to say that I am merely the middle-man from farmer to student. When you start with something that was picked in peak season, it doesn’t need much enhancement. Our team uses their creativity to dream up recipes that let these fresh and local ingredients shine. A lot of hands-on collaboration and planning go into getting the ingredients prepped and onto a student’s tray. Sure, buying straight from the farm isn’t always easy — try washing 300 pounds of fresh-out-of-the-ground carrots — but that’s a worthwhile tradeoff to support small, local businesses.
Farm-to-school, the school version of farm-to-table, has its challenges. Identifying local farmers, getting them up to speed and bringing them on board takes a lot of work. But it’s worth it. A lot of farmers’ kids go to school in our district. Buying local helps those students, and it allows them to say with pride, “This comes from my family’s farm!”
When a big buyer like a school sources from local producers, it makes a huge difference to everyone. Our pasta maker worked with us to create a recipe that could meet school nutrition guidelines and needs. Now, he’s supplying school districts throughout the state. He’s gone from this tiny space to a facility the size of an airplane hangar, and he’s hired an entire staff. Another vendor developed a breakfast item for us, and she also wound up bringing on a whole team and building out infrastructure to meet the increased demand. It’s great to see the choices we make create jobs in our community. My heart swells with pride at the impact we’re making.
We’re working to make school food better in our district, and we’re doing it for all our students. When I was young, I experienced firsthand the stigma that was associated with “free lunch.” At that time, students getting subsidized meals had to wait in a separate line. That kind of separation sends a message to a child – that needing help makes them lesser. But when you’ve got to eat, you can’t really do anything about it.
Universal free meals came along and changed all that. No more separate lines, and any student who wants a meal can have one. It’s such a beautiful thing, and it has led to way more kids participating.
When students eat school meals, it removes that stigma, builds a sense of community, and creates a positive relationship with food. By making school meals a shared experience, we promote equity and support local agriculture, and we help students build lifelong healthy habits. Because more students are eating school meals, our program generates additional funding, allowing us to reinvest in higher-quality ingredients, improve menus, and pay more livable wages.
Today, all our kids are excited about the meals we make. They run to the lunch line or the breakfast line, and express enthusiasm over the meals on the menu. There are fast food restaurants near the campus, but the kids come to us anyway, because our food is better and it’s free. We’re competing, we’re winning and no kids get left out.
Our goal as a district is to spread this work far and wide. We want to plant the seed, set an example and collaborate with anybody and everybody who wants to make school food better, fresher, healthier and more local. Our vision is to create a school food culture where every student is nourished, respected, and excited to eat. One that supports their health today and empowers their potential for the future.
So whatever that looks like, as long as we’ve got that north star in our minds and we’re moving in that direction, something good is going to bloom.