Overview
THE CIA HEALTHY KIDS COLLABORATIVE
The Culinary Institute of America’s Healthy Kids Collaborative is a year-round, invitational initiative designed to both accelerate innovation and deepen technical and professional expertise in K-12 school food. It is a unique and focused multi-year collaboration between school nutrition professionals, school chefs, suppliers, and other stakeholders to create and promote culinary-driven, healthier foods for kids.
School nutrition professionals need workable solutions to meet the challenges of feeding large numbers of children tasty, appealing, nutritious foods. School foodservice confronts an array of operational, purchasing, and staff training challenges. To receive federal funding, districts source, purchase, prepare and serve food that meets nutrition guidelines. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA) requires schools offer more fruit, vegetables and whole grains in meals, and limit sodium, calories and saturated fat. The “Smart Snacks in School” requires that other foods sold in schools also meet nutrition guidelines.
SCHOOL NUTRITION CHALLENGES
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) feeds more than 30 million students per day, which means five billion lunches and more than two billion breakfasts annually. Children served by the NSLP represent the United States, which is varied in income, region, and cultural heritage. School foodservice offers multiple opportunities for focused, culinary-centric innovation that will impact the eating habits and long-term health of our next generation.
SCHOOL NUTRITION OPPORTUNITIES
COLLABORATIVE FORMAT AND ANNUAL MEETING
The CIA Healthy Kids Collaborative members are an invited group of 35 to 40 school nutrition leaders from around the country, including directors and chefs, top food service management companies, expert school nutrition consultants, and other stakeholders. Corporate members are the companies and organizations that provide financial and other support for the initiative. All members participate in periodic conference calls, contribute to Working Groups based on targeted focus areas, and meet annually to work together on practical solutions that expand delicious, healthy menu choices. The CIA Healthy Kids Collaborative tenth annual meeting will take place at the CIA’s Copia location in December 2024. Members will participate in activities including discussion, presentations, and culinary demonstrations with corporate members. Selected content experts will share culinary and flavor insights, trends, updates on regulations and standards, and research on children’s eating habits, taste preferences, and nutrition. Information and resources (including recipes and presentations) from previous collaborative meetings are available here.
VISION FOR THE COLLABORATIVE
The CIA Healthy Kids Collaborative will leverage the combined expertise and experience of members, corporate members, and invited content experts with the goals of discovering flavor and menu strategies, highlighting successes and best practices, and developing training protocols and resources. The Collaborative will work collectively to explore culinary solutions to increase the availability and acceptance of healthy foods in schools, engage with leading suppliers and stakeholders to gain insights and ideas and to influence solutions, and share insights and solutions widely with school districts across the United States. The Healthy Kids Collaborative will apply lessons learned from other CIA health and wellness programs, including The CIA Healthy Menus Research & Development Collaborative, which is working on increasing the availability and profitability of healthy items on volume foodservice menus. The CIA Healthy Kids Collaborative focuses on creating a culinary culture in school nutrition and through this will improve the quality of school meals prepared and served. Members participate in four working groups.
These include:
Food and Nutrition Quality. Adding new menu items that focus on vegetables, fruits, whole grains and lean proteins helps school nutrition programs stay competitive. Culinary insight and innovation will help drive food acceptance in this vital area.
Flavor Exploration. Schools need products and recipes lower in sodium, but that children want to eat. Innovative products and strategic culinary techniques can maximize flavor while minimizing sodium.
Culture and Culinary Education. Creating optimal environments for school meals increases student satisfaction and decreases food waste. Considerations from the timing and length of meals and recess, positioning and presentation of foods, cafeteria surroundings, to the training of cafeteria staff, impact student experience and satisfaction. The Collaborative will pay special attention to how these food environment design issues intersect with culinary and menu strategies. Culinary and food literacy levels vary widely among school foodservice staff. The Healthy Kids Collaborative can identify priority educational and training needs and develop resources, helping to meet the new Professional Standards for school nutrition professionals.
Planet-Forward. As consumers and the food industry move toward increased planet-forward food choices, school nutrition is exploring ways to incorporate more planet-forward menu items into their operations. This working group will work to facilitate this movement, including collecting and developing school-friendly planet-forward recipes.
DIGITAL MEDIA AND RESOURCES FOR SCHOOLS
Sharing the collaborative learnings, best practices, and practical solutions broadly with school nutrition professionals across the United States is an important part of the work of The CIA Healthy Kids Collaborative. Members and corporate members will identify needed resources to be developed into digital media, recipes, presentations and other resources to share.
THE CIA: INNOVATION IN FOOD, HEALTH, AND SCHOOL NUTRITION
The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) is an innovator and leader in expanding the availability of delicious, healthier foods across the foodservice industry. The CIA partners with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health on a number of health and wellness initiatives, including the Worlds of Healthy Flavors, Menus of Change, and Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conferences. For five years, The CIA hosted the Healthy Flavors, Healthy Kids National Leadership Summit at our San Antonio campus. That initiative offered culinary strategy, flavor insight, and training resources to school nutrition professionals. The CIA is now transitioning much of our work in school food into a leadership collaborative to support faster change, a greater focus on culinary research and development, and a broader reach for our initiative.
ABOUT THE CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA
The Culinary Institute of America, a private, not-for-profit culinary college, is the world's premier culinary college whose faculty and alumni set the pace in the ever-expanding foodservice and hospitality industries. The Culinary Institute of America has a long-standing commitment to healthy cooking initiatives and the integration of healthy, world flavors in the future of American menu research and development. Founded in 1946, The Culinary Institute of America offers bachelor's and associate degrees, coursework for foodservice professionals and opportunities for professional certification, and operates four campuses, with locations in New York (Hudson Valley), California (Napa Valley), Texas (San Antonio), and Singapore.
THE CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA AT COPIA
The CIA at Copia, the site for Healthy Kids Collaborative, is the ultimate Napa Valley destination for exploring, experiencing, and enjoying the world of food, wine, and community. The CIA at Copia officially opened in early 2017 with a variety of consumer-facing programs and experiences. In one convenient location in downtown Napa, guests can experience daily cooking and beverage classes, wine tastings, a lifestyle store, full-service bar and restaurant, art collections, and private and community events. With its leadership initiatives in menu development, flavor and health and wellness—and its world-class teaching kitchens and other state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities— The Culinary Institute of America at Copia has become an epicenter for innovation and a culinary "think tank" for the American foodservice industry.