In February, staff at Ridge View Elementary in Belgrade off ered samples of Montana Marinara to students as a part of a statewide eff ort to provide locally grown school lunches.
New Program Offers Meals Prepared with Montana-grown Ingredients
This winter, schools across Montana will have a new locally made product on their lunch menus: Montana Marinara. It’s the result of a unique collaboration between the Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center, Montana Office of Public Instruction, and the Northwest Food Hub Network.
School meal programs in Montana consistently face challenges to local food procurement, particularly cost and distribution. They operate on tight budgets, and local food tends to be more expensive than products available through major distributors. Additionally, Montana is a large, rural state, which means getting fresh, local food to Montana schools is diffi cult for typical distributors.
To help, the Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center—located in Ronan—partnered with OPI and the Northwest Food Hub Network to bring more local, value-added food products to all school districts in Montana. OPI administers the state’s National School Lunch Program and associated programs like USDA Foods. USDA Foods is a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture through which schools can purchase foods grown in the U.S. using their entitlement funds, calculated based on how many meals each school serves. OPI maintains distribution routes that deliver these foods to schools across the state.
Meanwhile, the Northwest Food Hub Network is a collaborative partnership between farmer-owned cooperative food hubs in Montana and Washington and includes the Western Montana Growers Cooperative, Puget Sound Food Hub, and LINC Foods. This network focuses on supporting small farmers and supplying institutions across the Northwest with locally grown foods that promote vibrant food economies and sustainable communities.
Over the last year, Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center and OPI discovered that it was possible to structure an in-state processing agreement with the USDA. Through this agreement, products from USDA Foods are brought to the food center where they are combined with local ingredients to create an affordable, value-added product. OPI can then distribute the final product to schools statewide. Montana Marinara is the pilot product for this collaboration. OPI will divert canned tomatoes from the USDA Foods program to the Mission Mountain Food Center. There, the canned tomatoes will be combined with Montana-grown carrots, onions, squash, and safflower oil (sourced through the Northwest Food Hub Network) to create a veggie-packed marinara sauce for schools. OPI will then deliver the sauce to schools across the state. By coming together, we can connect schools to local food in an efficient and centralized way.
In December 2021, Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center processed a small batch of Montana Marinara and samples were sent to schools across the state. The food center received positive feedback from school food service directors, staff , and students—89 percent of the high schoolers surveyed said they would eat it again.
After the sample run, schools were able to place orders through OPI for the 2022–23 school year, and 1,600 cases were ordered. That’s 32,000 pounds of marinara made with over 11,000 pounds of local veggies and 128 cases of that is headed to Bozeman and the surrounding area to feed students at 11 school districts across Gallatin, Madison, and Park counties.
In the future, Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center and OPI hope to create a whole line of products made with USDA Foods and Montana ingredients. Together, we can reach our goals of feeding Montana children delicious, healthy, and locally grown school lunches while fairly supporting Montana producers.
