PROBLEM: School meals in Boston Public Schools were provided by a New York-based corporation called Revolution Foods, meaning pre-packaged, plastic-wrapped, highly-processed meals were being shipped into Boston, reheated in school kitchens, and served to students. In addition to the poor nutritional value of these meals, this system also had significant environmental and economic drawbacks, with millions in USDA funding for Boston schools being steered away from the local economy to support a large out-of-state vendor.

PARTNERS: We partnered with the City of Boston under then-Mayor Martin J. Walsh, along with the leadership of Boston Public Schools, to reimagine this system in a way that better served our students and our city.

SOLUTION: By cooking school food on-site rather than shipping in vended meals, Boston Public Schools would be able to create hundreds of local jobs, spend millions in federal dollars locally, and provide students with fresh, healthy, and culturally-familiar meals that they will actually want to eat. The biggest barrier to this transformation was in the outdated nature of kitchens across BPS. Working with our partners, the Shah Family Foundation helped build beautiful, modern kitchens across all 125 public schools in Boston.

ADOPTION: Thanks to these new kitchens, every Boston public school now has the ability to provide fresh, scratch-cooked meals. Many have made this transition and others are in the process of making this transition. Those that have not yet made this transition are providing meals sourced and cooked locally by local vendor City Fresh. Revolution Foods no longer provides meals to Boston Public Schools.