FCPS plans to bring more fresh produce to school lunches
The Frederick County Board of Education has accepted two bids from local farms to serve fresh produce throughout Frederick County Public Schools.
The board on Sept. 11 accepted bids from Moon Valley Farm near Woodsboro and Catoctin Mountain Orchard near Thurmont.
The bids are priced per purchasing unit, which varies among fruits and vegetables.
For example, FCPS will pay Catoctin Mountain $23 per bushel of apples, which is 125 apples, according to the bid tabulation. The school district will pay Moon Valley $29 per bushel of apples.
FCPS spent $70,456 in fiscal year 2023 and $84,106 in fiscal year 2024 on fresh produce for the schools.
Emma Jagoz founded Moon Valley Farm in 2012. She said she started her career farming half an acre of borrowed land, and now owns 70 acres on Gravel Hill Road in addition to leasing land across the street from the farm.
She said the farm plans to sell its produce to about 15 schools during the 2024-25 school year.
Jagoz said Moon Valley's partnership with FCPS began in 2021 after the county issued a purchase order to the farm. She said although it was successful, businesses who sell to schools are capped at a certain amount of money without an actual request for proposal.
In 2022, Moon Valley submitted its first official bid to provide local produce in schools.
"When the RFP came up, we said, 'OK, we had a successful first year of selling to Frederick County Public Schools. This feels like a really good fit, let's go for the RFP,'" Jagoz said.
"We were awarded that that year, and for the past two years since then, we've grown our relationship with Frederick County Public Schools."
Jagoz said that with the new bid this year, the farm is selling a higher volume and a more diverse array of foods since 2022.
She said the farm began with selling carrots, spinach and apples to the school district.
Moon Valley will now also provide grape and cherry tomatoes.
"I have to give the school nutrition folks a lot of credit for doing their best to offer diversity, especially in elementary schools, where we know that introducing a diverse array of foods has an impact later in life," Jagoz said. "They do their best and create and implement really awesome programs that prioritize diversity in the diets."
Alysia Feuer, executive director of the Frederick chapter of the national nonprofit organization Farm to School, gave a presentation about nutrition and school lunches at the board meeting on Sept. 11.
Feuer said during the meeting that one of the organization's goals is to increase local produce consumption through schools. She said nutrition education is important for young students to understand, and that FCPS has an opportunity to teach students about proper nutrition in the school cafeteria.
"If students can balance an algebraic equation, but they can't tell us how a meal is balanced, are they really educated?" she asked board members during her presentation.
Feuer added that the items served on the side of school lunches, such as chips and ice cream, should be viewed as once-in-a-while treats instead of an option for every school day.
"Healthy changes have a powerful impact," she said. "People say, 'Oh, they won't eat it.' That is not true."
Jagoz agreed that items served on the side of FCPS lunches are not nutritious, though they are convenient and food-safe, with low handling. She said funding programs to help make nutritious and substantive foods more convenient for students is the solution.
"There has to be a whole shift in additional funding for cafeteria staffing to provide more fresh foods, especially if you're talking about foods that need to be chopped," Jagoz said. "These honeycrisp apples would be amazing if they were sliced."
The online proposal was downloaded 23 times, according to the board's work group agenda.
Seashore Fruit & Produce Company in Vineland, New Jersey, and Class Produce Group in Jessup also submitted bids to the school district, but they were not accepted based on the given criteria.
Robert Kelly, the food and nutrition services director for FCPS, said the school district currently purchases produce from several vendors to support the needs of students.
One of the current vendors is Seashore Fruit & Produce Company. Although the wholesaler did not receive this particular bid, Kelly said the company has a bid with the school district through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
He said similar to enrollment in the county, the number of breakfast and lunch meals FCPS serves is increasing dramatically.
"As Frederick County Public Schools continues to grow, the demand is there more and more," Kelly said. "So, we developed this RFP and put out the bid to source local produce."
