Fresh, local beef - it's what's for lunch at Kelso schools

With its second year of the Washington State Department of Agriculture Farm to School grant, Kelso School District is pivoting from focusing on local produce to buying beef from local farmers.

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The district plans to buy 4,500 pounds of ground beef from Windy River Livestock, a beef and pork farm in Camas, using the $29,000 state grant, Nutrition Services Supervisor Kaydee Harris said.

The state grant aims to keep money in the local economy and to produce healthy school meals that kids enjoy more than prepackaged or pre-cooked options.

The beef will be used in dishes from nachos to the new beef goulash that students voted in as part of Kelso's annual Test Kitchen recipe contest.

"I'm excited for students to taste the difference," Harris said.

Selecting a farm

To select the farm to partner with, the district requested bids from local farms and scored them based on pricing, proximity, whether they had worked with school districts before, and their overall reputation. Windy River Livestock came out on top.

Having a provider that has experience working with school districts is important because the process differs from supplying businesses or restaurants, Harris said. One key difference is that school districts require strict documentation to trace exactly where meat comes from in case of a disease outbreak or other recall.

Harris and other district staff visited Windy River for a tour with owners Will and Jocelyn Stauffer, and Harris said she was impressed by what she saw.

"My impression is that those are some very happy cows that have a great life, and it makes you feel a lot more confident," she said. "It gives you that extra confidence you need to take that step to buying local because you truly get to see the quality that's happening there."

Farm owners

Kelso School District Nutrition Services Supervisor Kaydee Harris, center, poses with Windy River Livestock owners Will Stauffer and Jocelyn Stauffer Tuesday, June 16. Windy River is a family-owned beef and cattle farm near Camas.

Farm to School

The Farm to School grant is a state program that provides school districts with funding to purchase food grown, raised, caught or foraged in Washington.

Districts must apply every two years, and this is Kelso's second year of the grant cycle. Harris said she plans to apply for the grant again once it reopens next year.

The Washington Department of Agriculture website states that the grant can be used for both whole and processed foods, as long as the primary ingredient in the processed foods was produced entirely in Washington. For example, yogurt made only with milk from cows raised in Washington would qualify.

When applying for the grant, Harris said she had to provide specific plans for how the funding would be used.

Last school year, the district used the funding to buy fruits and vegetables from local farms.

This year, Harris said she decided to be more ambitious and try using the funding for fresh beef instead. The change required extra planning because not all of the district's kitchens are set up to handle raw meat, and cooking it would add another task to staff members' schedules.

The district currently uses pre-cooked, frozen ground beef in its recipes. Harris said the plan is to cook and freeze about half of the district's order of fresh ground beef, storing it and sending it to schools as needed throughout the school year.

"That way, our schools are receiving the product essentially the way that they're used to receiving it," Harris said.

Using the grant to pay for the ground beef has freed up about $25,000 of the district's commodities funding, which Harris said she plans to use to continue buying local produce.

Cows

A herd of cows stand in a pasture at Windy River Livestock Tuesday, June 16. Kelso School District agreed to purchase 4,500 pounds of beef from the farm using funding from a state grant.

Tasting the difference

The ground beef the district has been using comes from a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that provides food to school districts, Harris said. Rather than being 100% beef, it's cut with soy crumbles and is pre-cooked.

"It's not a bad product, but it's not the best product," she said. "Taking this step helps us get to the best that we can have."

Cooking with fresh meat also gives nutrition staff more control over the sodium levels in each meal, as salt is often included as a preservative and flavoring in pre-cooked meat.

School meal programs operate under strict limits on the amount of sodium they are allowed to include. New USDA regulations announced in 2024 are set to further reduce sodium limits in breakfast by 10% and in lunch by 15% in the 2027-2028 school year.

The agency advised schools to begin gradually lowering their sodium content until it aligns with the new standards.

"As those sodium restrictions get tighter and tighter, we'll have to be creative in finding every single way that we can reduce sodium throughout our menu," Harris said.

The Centers for Disease Control reports that eating too much sodium, which is most commonly consumed as salt, can increase blood pressure and raise the risk of heart disease or strokes. However, small amounts of sodium are necessary to stay healthy.

Salt is also an important factor in making sure food tastes good, Harris said. When nutrition staff aren't limited by the sodium content of pre-cooked meats, they have more leeway to add salt for flavor in other parts of the recipe while still staying within federal guidelines.

Harris said she is looking into the option of switching from pre-cooked to raw chicken in the future. Pre-cooked chicken has a higher sodium content and is much more expensive than raw chicken, she said.

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