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Starting from Scratch: A School Food Culinary Intensive Application

Please read the following information in its entirety before starting your application

Starting from Scratch: A School Food Culinary Intensive, hosted by the Chef Ann Foundation, is an immersive learning experience for school districts committed to advancing scratch cooking and strengthening their food service systems. Participants will develop practical culinary skills and learn how to effectively utilize commercial kitchen equipment to prepare and scale scratch-made meals in K–12 environments. Through hands-on cooking, collaborative learning, and targeted sessions aligned with CAF’s five pillars— Food, Finance, Facilities, Human Resources, and Marketing —district teams will gain actionable strategies to build sustainable, system-wide change. The experience also includes site visits, allowing participants to see scratch cooking systems in action and connect their learning directly to real-world school food operations.

Important Dates:

Application Opens: April 1, 2026
Application Closes: May 15, 2026
Districts Notified Whether Selected: July 15, 2026
Registration Payment due date: August 15, 2026
Intensive in Boulder, CO: November 6-9, 2026
Community of Practice & Strategic Planning: December 2026 – November 2027
Participants will engage in five Community of Practice sessions—deep-dive sessions with Chef Ann Foundation experts to review strategic plans, participate in peer-to-peer learning with their cohort, and share progress to support their district’s scratch cooking journey. The experience will conclude with a closing celebration to reflect on progress and recognize accomplishments.

Participation in Starting from Scratch: A School Food Culinary Intensive requires a strong commitment to advancing scratch cooking and strengthening district food service operations. This application is designed to identify districts that are ready to deepen their culinary practices, operational systems, and team capacity. Priority will be given to districts that can demonstrate leadership support, internal alignment, and a clear plan for how the Intensive will advance healthier, scratch-prepared meals and long-term program growth within their schools.

If you have additional documents you are unable to load into the application portal, please send them via email to CAF Senior Coordinator, District Support Programs, Thandi Ngoma, at thandiwe.ngoma@chefannfoundation.org

Program Eligibility

To apply, school districts must meet the following criteria:

Be firmly committed to working towards a scratch-cooked, fresh-whole-foods approach to their meal programs.
Demonstrate support for improvement from district leadership.
Participate in the School Breakfast Program and National School Lunch Program.
Run a self-operated food service program, without a Food Service Management Company or any vended meal contracts.
Public school or tuition-free charter school.
Not under the dependency of the state.
Applicants must be a representative in a leadership role within the school nutrition program who has decision-making authority, or a designee of that leadership representative, completing the application on behalf of the school nutrition department.

Workshop Dates

Do you commit to attending Starting from Scratch in Boulder, CO, from Friday, November 6, at 5:00 p.m. MT, through Monday, November 9, at 2:00 p.m MT, 2026?

Each district is responsible for covering its own travel expenses and submitting a registration fee of $550 per participant. Each district may register up to two participants. At least one participant must hold a leadership role within the school nutrition program and be directly responsible for decision-making and implementation. The second participant should be a culinary team member actively driving fundamental change in the district’s school food and nutrition program.

The total registration fee per district is $1,100, plus all travel-related expenses.

This is a very involved and extensive event that provides hands-on, practical training in Chef Ann Foundation’s five key areas of our systems approach to change: Food, Finance, Facilities, Human Resources, and Marketing.

Application commitment

YES I commit to attending the event in Boulder CO, Fri Nov 6 thru Monday Nov 9. I understand that if selected, my district will be responsible for all travel expenses and a required registration fee of $550 / participant for up to 2 (two) participants.

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Section #2 - Goal and Objectives

For this section of the application, please provide approximately 1 paragraph (500-character limit) for each prompt.

Goals and Objectives

What inspires you about the Chef Ann Foundation's work?

Why are you applying for Culinary Intensive?
Include why you feel your team and your district leadership are ready to be part of this program. Describe your department's vision and how the activities of the intensive support your goals for sustainable food service improvement in your district.

How would you describe your current comfort level with scratch cooking in a K–12 school food setting?

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Section #3 - Department Details

School Site Facilities

How many of each of the following types of sites does your district operate?

Satellite Site
a facility that receives and serves pre-cooked or partially prepared food from a central or regional location or vendor

Central Kitchen
a production kitchen where food is prepared and delivered to surrounding schools

Regional Kitchen
a production kitchen and serving site, where food is produced for the school the kitchen is attached to, as well as delivered to surrounding schools

a production kitchen and serving site, where food is produced for the school the kitchen is attached to, as well as delivered to surrounding schools

Self-prep / Solo Production Site
In a school with a cooking kitchen, the meals to be served at that school are prepared primarily on site in that kitchen. Nearly all vendor deliveries are made to this site, and the food served is not exclusively heat-and-serve. If a district has a central kitchen or warehouse, this Cooking Kitchen site may receive minimal support

Central Warehouse
This site receives the bulk of food deliveries, and the food for each school is distributed from this warehouse. Very little to no food preparation takes place at a central warehouse

Briefly describe the operational model in your district.

For example, the number of schools that receive deliveries and produce their own meals; the number of schools that operate as regional production locations; the number of schools they ship to; the number of meals shipped by each production site; whether breakfast and lunch are shipped; the type of delivery (hot, cold, truck type); the day of delivery/ day before, etc. Please include if your district is currently or planning to start bond projects that will impact school facilities (kitchens and dining rooms).

If you operate a food service warehouse, briefly describe how it serves the school's sites.
For example, are all food and supplies delivered to a central warehouse and shipped to the school locations? If you are operating a central kitchen, describe the system, how many sites it serves, and what type of meals are shipped (bulk, individually packaged, etc.).

Please describe efforts that the food service department, district, and community have made to improve the quality of your school meal programs in the last five years.
This may include staff professional development and training, menu changes, methods of meal service, equipment replacement, adoption or changes in district policies, schedules, or support to food service; adoption of new programs such as farm to school, school gardens, cooking classes, or participating in community events related to health and wellness.

Please describe the primary challenges that the food service department faces in providing healthy meals to students and how your team and the district have been addressing them.

Please describe any key partnerships that support the goals of the food service program.
For example, parents groups, wellness committees, community, businesses, organizations that provide aligned activities like nutrition education, building gardens, providing marketing support, etc.

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Section #4 - Menu Details

Please describe any scratch cooking you are already doing

Please describe a la carte sales in your district.
For example, how reliant is your food service budget on a la carte sales? Do all schools sell a la carte items? What types of foods do you sell? (packaged snacks, ice cream, types of drinks).

Menu Uploads

Please upload your current elementary and secondary-level menus for breakfast and lunch for the current month.

Menu Upload - Elementary Lunch

Menu Upload - Elementary Breakfast

Menu Upload - Secondary Breakfast

Menu Upload - Secondary Lunch

Procurement

Please describe your current procurement processes.
For example, who is primarily responsible for the day-to-day process of procurement, what are the ordering and receiving processes in the district for sites and with vendors, who develops bids, RFQs, and RFPs, whether the district is a member of a cooperative purchasing program, etc.

What procurement challenges do you face?

Other procurement challenges (please specify)

Local Growers & Producers:
Do you spend more than $5000 with any regional or local growers and producers?

YesNo

Note
If accepted into the Starting From Scratch Intensive, participating districts will be expected to share budget-related information (e.g., high-level food, labor, and operational costs) before and during the event to support planning and learning activities.

Starting from Scratch Application

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Starting from Scratch: A School Food Culinary Intensive Application

Program Eligibility

Workshop Dates

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Section #1 - Food Service Department Information

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Section #2 - Goal and Objectives

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Section #3 - Department Details

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Section #4 - Menu Details