09/10/07 Local Foods In Schools

Local Foods in Schools. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Supporters of getting more nutritious and locally-grown foods into Oregon schools may have additional support thanks to projects involving the Food Innovation Center in Portland. The Food Innovation Center is jointly run by the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Oregon State University, and assists food companies and others through a variety of on-site services. This time, however, those services went off-site to the State Fair, where OSU's Sensory and Consumer Program conducted a survey that included a taste test. COLONNA: Over 200 people took the test from all parts of the state, all age groups, all incomes, educational background. And so far, it looks like the results are pretty encouraging, I think, if you're for this- getting more local foods into the schools. OSU's Ann Colonna says about 40 percent of the respondents don't believe purchasing a school lunch is a nutritious alternative to packing a lunch. More than half say they are willing to pay a little extra to get nutritious, locally-grown food into schools. In addition, kids and adults surveyed were asked to taste a locally produced breakfast bar. COLONNA: People loved the packaging and this packaging has been geared towards younger children, school age children. They also loved the taste overwhelmingly. Sixty percent said they would like to see this product in their school. That product is already in some Oregon schools and may now find more buyers because of the survey results. ODA will be starting a project of its own that aims to bring local processors and school districts together in an online matchmaking system that will hopefully make it easier to get local nutritious foods to more Oregon kids. Colonna says taking the sensory program and survey off-site from the Food Innovation Center was helpful because a wider spectrum of people were able to take part. COLONNA: I think it was to our advantage to be able to poll people at the State Fair because, while it's fantastic to do things here at the Food Innovation Center, we might have had results that were different just polling people from the Portland metro area. Colonna says the survey results suggest a definite trend when it comes to farm-to-school efforts: COLONNA: People right now don't feel the school lunches are necessarily nutritious or something they want their kids to be eating five days a week. Yet, a large percentage of people say they would like to see and would be willing to pay more to get some more local foods, highly nutritious foods into the schools. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.