Jason Tepper is the Executive Chef at Alexandria City Public Schools in Virginia. He joined the school nutrition team in January of 2021 to help improve the food served at schools and address nutrition insecurity in his community. Jason focuses on global cuisine, promoting sustainable, planet-forward meals while showing students how food choices affect their health and the health of our planet. He is passionate about supporting local farmers and building menus around locally sourced produce.

Jason enjoys cooking for his family and tending to his garden, where he grows spicy peppers and herbs - the only things that his dogs don't devour before he can harvest them.

Jason is a proud member of The Culinary Institute of America’s Healthy Kids Collaborative.

Fun Facts:

1) Jason does Muay Thai Boxing and likes to row.

2) Aspires to buy a local farmers entire crop for school food. It could be anything that we can build menus around and helps the farmer to help our students.

3) Wants to spread awareness around HOM, Scratch Cooking, Local Procurement, Farm to School, Virginia Blue Catfish, Virginia peanuts and under water plant based foods like sea kelp.