Target Audience

Target Audience 

We are creating awareness to the local parents and targeting the school systems to make a change in school lunch programs. The second audience is targeting the state government and local partners to help fund the new school lunch program instead of spending the money on institutional food.   

The Details

Because many of the population especially the children are not aware of the issues at hand this company will raise awareness to the children not getting nutritious lunches at school. The program will be rolling out in California. Local farming communities such as Ventura, Oxnard, Ojai will provide California school systems healthy lunches year round. 

Primary Audience: Children and Parents

Raising awareness to the children in the local school systems about the issue at hand. Educating the children and their parents about healthy eating will engage them to support the new initiative, and understand why it is such a necessity. These families will be targeted for awareness in different ways the parents of the children K-8th will be more primarily targeted since the children at this age can't fully grasp the effects that eating unhealthy processed food can have on your body later on. Students in the high schools will be primarily targeted since they need to be motivated themselves to live a healthy lifestyles and need the resources to understand healthy eating. Marketing to the students will revitalize positive perceptions on school lunches. This will allow more money to provide the students with healthy meals. Turlock Jr. High had advertised the improved school lunches to the students and the totals have nearly tripled from 2007 with 51,709 to 2010 with 147,561 total lunches. This school district hit a bottom line of $1.4 million dollar revenue between the 2007 and 2010 school years. 

Secondary Audience: State Government and Local Partners

$500,000 annual go to institutional lunch programs from federal funds in California, according to cde.ca.gov. This huge amount of money could fund the schools to partner with local farmers and money could stay in the community.  

Objectives

The Objective 

To provide healthy organic food free of GMO's ( genetically modified organisms) and hormones to children at schools by teaming with local farmers to create awareness and support of the farmers, boosting the local economy. 

The Details

We want to provide a multi-function solution to nutrition problems children unknowingly face at school. Providing a good example will help them jump start a healthy lifestyle that is not present in majority of the students today. School food started out as a solution to hunger and now has created behavior, learning, and heath problems because schools have turned their food service over to huge for-profit organizations. These businesses replace real food with cheap substitutes that they themselves would not consider eating. 

According to the CDC childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years. The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2010. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to 18% over the same period. Obese youth are more likely to have risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. In a population-based sample of 5 to 17-year-olds, 70% of obese youth had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease. This is a direct result of the eating habits the youth in america have today. Not only are our youth having "caloric imbalance" but many of the foods they do get are not healthy and not providing them with the nutrients they need throughout the day. 

Foods that contain GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and processed ingredients do not contain all the nutrients that unprocessed organic foods contain. The sad truth is many of the foods that are most popular with children contain GMOs. Cereals, snack bars, snack boxes, cookies, processed lunch meats, and crackers all contain large amounts of high risk food ingredients. In North America, over 80% of our food contains GMOs.  If you are not buying foods that are Non-GMO Project Verified, most likely GMOs are present at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Once we raise awareness for the issue with childhood health problems and encourage school systems to partner with the local farmers and families this will be a much need solution to many issues. Also it will teach children and parents the long term benefits of being healthy and eating locally.   

Situation Analysis

The Problem 

Children in school systems are eating unhealthy processed foods everyday, and not getting the nutrients  required to be healthy . Americas children are increasingly afflicted with adult diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension as a direct result of their diet and lifestyle. Schools face economic challenges in providing healthful and nutritious foods to students.

The Opportunity

The opportunity is to join with local farmers producing organic foods directly in the local community. The local farmers providing food for school lunches will allow the students to get the healthy nutrients that they need in their daily routines. Getting these required nutrients will help the students improve behavior and jump start a healthy lifestyle. Food offered in schools today is provided by large food factories that are cheap, but very low quality. It meets USDA guidelines but offers very little in way of nutrients and taste. 

This will also support the local economy instead of the schools buying institutional food they will be putting the money to the local farmers boosting the local revenue. Keeping the money local will help the schools become more self sufficient and less dependent on imports from large food institutions. The New Economics Foundation, an independent economic think tank based in London, compared what happens when people buy produce at a supermarket vs. a local farmer's market or community supported agriculture (CSA) program and found that twice the money stayed in the community when folks bought locally. "That means those purchases are twice as efficient in terms of keeping the local economy alive," says author and researcher David Boyle. 

Perceptions of our children school lunches need to be addressed within the adult public, and the school systems. Because ingredients are so cheap, distributors can offer schools rebates that can amount to as much as 50%. This is a powerful incentive to turn a blind eye to what actually is being served. This is not acceptable when we look at some the effects of synthetic food additives and preservatives have on the youth such as learning deficits, aggression, attention deficits, cancer, cell damage, headaches, DNA damage, tumors, and much more. 

The Competition 

Are schools and local communities already trying to solve the problem and are there solutions successful? No known communities are partnering with local farmers to create this multi-solutional idea. Other places are trying though witch shows the importance of the problem and the need for a sustainable solution. 

Physicians Committee 

www.pcrm.org

The Healthy School Meals Act (H.R. 4870) will improve children’s eating patterns by encouraging the inclusion of healthful plant-based options in the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. This important legislation will introduce plant-based foods to schools, increase the availability and affordability of these foods, and provide incentives for schools to provide daily plant-based options. The Act will also remove restrictions on providing nondairy milk alternatives with school lunches, improving the nutrition of millions children who currently lose out on vital nutrients because they are lactose intolerant, have allergies, or choose not to drink milk for other reasons.

Schoolhouse Fare 

www.schoolhousefare.com

Schoolhouse Fare is a dynamic company that presents your school with an innovative solution to provide healthy popular lunch choices for your students. At no cost to your school, we offer our school lunch program as a viable alternative to full service cafeterias and school managed lunch programs. To facilitate our solution, the lunch program features a convenient and user friendly online lunch order and payment program. The automation broadens the variety of nutritious choices on the menu so that families can create an economical lunch that their students will enjoy. To provide these quality lunches, popular family restaurants have been carefully selected to prepare and deliver the fresh lunches raising the bar over menus of processed foods. Currently Schoolhouse Fare is serving schools in Indiana, Ohio and South Carolina.

Appleton,Wisconsin Central Alternative School 

www.feingold.org/PF/wisconsin1

Appleton, Wisconsin initiated a five year program to healthy food in area schools. The goal was to show that fresh, nutritious food can make a real difference in a students behavior. 

Chefs move to schools 
www.chefsmovetoschools.org
its goal of solving the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation. This website creates a platform for chefs and schools to create partnerships in their communities with the mission of collaboratively educating kids about food and healthy eating.

Let's Move 
www.letsmove.gov
The Partnership for a Healthier America fills a unique niche among childhood obesity initiatives across the United States. In collaboration with Let’s Move!, the Partnership will work alongside the Federal government to build target industry-specific solutions to fight obesity that can be measured and tracked. Rather than award grants, engage in policy discussions, or develop programmatic activities, the Partnership concentrates on mobilizing leadership from across sectors and at every level to take action that can have a significant impact on organizational goals.