I received a media advisory yesterday from my friends at School Food FOCUS indicating that Chicago Public Schools and its food service provider Chartwells will announce today a first-of-its-kind initiative to serve only* chicken raised without antibiotics to the city’s K-12 students.
The effort is under partnership with the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming and School Food FOCUS.
I’ll try to be on the media call today, but either way will provide more details here when they become available. This sounds very promising!
[*Ed. Correction: I’ve just learned that CPS will not be serving only antibiotic-free chicken. Details to follow once I learn more.]
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Very interesting! I have been going through great lengths to source antibiotic and hormone-free meats for my school food service operations. Been trying to force it into mainstream distribution in the NY Metro Area for 3 years now! Can’t wait to hear about the progress in Chicago.
Lisa – I’m talking to FOCUS early next week for more details and will have a post up right after that, I hope.
We have ABF and hormone-free meats and dairy in our school lunches at Choicelunch and I will say, it is *touogh* to get documentation from some foodservice partners… Tough but not impossible and things are getting easier. With CPS doing this, it will be easier for all of us! YAY!
Yes, the documentation part is helpful – I’ll have a full post on this next week.
I love Choicelunch – they are a great example of what a healthy kids’ lunch can be – but sadly their average price of around $5 puts their service out of reach for typical public schools, which would also have to cover the costs of running a NSLP program (counting and claiming the meals, filling out the mountains of paperwork to get the govt. reimbursement, etc.) while receiving less than $3 per (free or reduced) lunch from the government.