Spotlight on Success: Facility Improvements Support Healthy Meals

 

Celebrate with us as we reflect on our 2019-2024 Strategic Plan and the many successes accomplished over the last five years. Today, we're sharing the story of how NVUSD's focus on "Tactical, Proactive, and Efficient Asset Management" is helping provide food service facilities that allow our community to have access to free, healthy lunches.

What did you have for lunch today?

Chicken pozole!

BBQ chicken drumsticks!

Bean and cheese pupusas!

Carnitas burrito!

…and a favorite, beef hamburgers!

Each day students across the Napa Valley Unified District eat free, hot lunches, provided by NVUSD’s NOSH Food Services. Last year NOSH made over 680,000 lunches using the “scratch” cooking model. In this model, NOSH kitchen staff use fresh, raw, local ingredients to prepare lunch and incorporate premade/precooked items only when necessary.

This model is possible because of facility improvements paid for by Measure H and included the construction of a central kitchen that serves NVUSD schools and finishing kitchens at school sites. Partnerships with organizations like the Chef Ann Foundation are also essential to continued success.

“These partnerships and facilities allow great things to happen,” shared Director II of Food Services Kristen Tekell. “They make it possible for NOSH to offer appealing and healthy meals that we can tailor to our students' unique cultural backgrounds, using locally sourced products. It’s a win-win.”

Here are some fun facts about NVUSD’s lunch program.

NOSH utilizes a speed scratch/scratch cooking model for lunch.
Students can choose a vegetarian option at lunch and have access to a salad bar every day!
All produce served is fresh and 98 percent comes from California.
We buy food locally whenever possible.

To learn more, check out the menu or visit the NOSH website.