Full Plates and USDA Announce Seven Grant Recipients

July 11, 2024 |

(From Full Plates Full Potential) – Full Plates and the USDA announce the award of $7,3387,839 through the USDA Healthy Meals Incentive Initiative’s School Food System Transformation Challenge to seven Maine collaborative projects for the School Food System Innovation Grant.

A panel of 26 experts from the school food system reviewed 18 eligible applications and recommended these projects for funding:

  • Good Grains on the Go (Skowhegan, ME) will pilot and develop local, value-added “convenience foods” popular with students like pizza, calzones, and other whole-grain based breakfast and lunch items using Maine grains and other local ingredients.
  • Halal Meal Production Hub (Unity, ME) will pilot and develop culturally responsive halal certified heat and serve value-added school meals using local ingredients.
  • Streamlining Access to Maine Grown K-12 Products (Unity, ME) will expand existing work to aggregate and distribute high-quality local foods to Maine schools using a centralized online ordering system and collaborative distribution infrastructure.
  • Fishermen Feeding K-12 Mainers (Brunswick, ME) will expand an existing program to get local fish into schools and will also pilot and develop local, value-added seafood products for Maine schools.
  • School-Based Food Hub (Auburn, ME) will establish a collaborative, regional, school food processing and distribution hub in the Lewiston-Auburn area.
  • Somerset County Farm to School Initiative (Skowhegan, ME) will build upon an existing partnership between Somerset County local schools, Somerset Public Health, and the Somerset County Jail to supply local food to the schools starting with seedlings planted by the students that are then grown, harvested, and processed by the inmates .
  • Local Food Switchboard (Statewide) will create an online local food hub and database to strengthen connections within Maine’s local food system to increase local food processing capacity, expand distribution channels, and ultimately connect more local food products to Maine schools

This group of projects represents a robust cohort with the potential for far reaching impacts that will strengthen Maine’s K-12 school food system, and address the challenges and opportunities laid out in the School Food System Innovation RFA around sourcing and serving more local food in Maine schools.