Remarkable Academic Foods

00:00:07 Rick

Welcome to the farm to school podcast where you will hear stories of how you thrive and farmers prosper when we learn how to grow, cook, and eat delicious, nutritious local foods in schools across the country.

00:00:20 Michelle

..And the world. Hey everyone, we're your hosts. I'm Michelle Markesteyn.

00:00:24 Rick

And I'm still Rick Sherman. Today we have a special guest with us, Joshua Miller. He's a principal Consultant with Remarkable Academic Foods. So, Joshua, hello. Welcome to the program.

00:00:39 Joshua Miller

Thank you for having me on Rick and Michelle.

00:00:42 Rick

So Joshua, tell us about yourself. Tell us about your journey and where, how you ended up where you are today.

00:00:49 Joshua Miller

Yeah. So my journey is technically you could go all the way back to my childhood where I was.. In love with.. I just fell in love with cooking from the moment I cooked my first item with scrambled eggs and I said I want to be a chef and it was like destined from there. I was like 8 years old and today I’m still involved in the industry as someone else put it, I can't take credit for it, but “recovering Chef”. Yeah, but, but I guess you can say I am. And so, you know, really getting involved with this starting up this company, I was heading into college food service dining and before I became the clothing director for a food service contract company and getting involved in the K12 aspect of child nutrition. Part of it is really a passion of mines. From my memories of childhood and school lunches, I started off in a great school private grade school and they unfortunately gave us like fast food every day. It was like Arby's roast beef sandwich once a day. I'm sorry. Once a week, Burger King Cheeseburger once a week. Chicken Nuggets from a local chicken place once a week. Yeah, so that that not very great. And then I went to high school, part of the National School lunch program. Very bare bones. Not really any fresh. Anything that I remember, except maybe a salad every now and again, and I realized as I got older and my mid 20s, I was like, whoa, like my relationship with healthy food has really been negatively impacted by not being exposed to fresher foods growing up and including in school so, I'm here to make a difference. Any way that I can? And while I'm not the person that's gonna come in and can help you with procuring your foods for child nutrition, there's obviously a lot of ancillary components to child nutrition and that can help with such as training and equipment planning, and things like that.

00:02:47 Michelle

I just appreciate your passion and your skills and how multifaceted they are and what you bring to this work. And you just covered a ton of ground. I'd like to put this in context for all our listeners, because what Joshua so eloquently overlaid was, you know, starting in a private school that was not part of a child nutrition program such as National School lunch or breakfast program, and then switching to a school that would, and this distinction is that child nutrition programs have strict nutrition requirements and things that need to be served when. So even if there are name brand recognizable products in schools such as like a national brand of pizza for example. Or chocolate milk for example. It will be very differently formulated in child nutrition programs than something that you would buy at a convenience store or something. There's lots of whole grains in them. Less sugar. There's less sodium. They literally are different foods from what you can buy commercially.

00:03:54 Rick

I and that's a good point, Michelle. There might be certain stigma attached to some of those things, like some of the like a name brand recognizable audience. People might just automatically assume how it how it's formulated. But is that right?

00:04:11 Michelle

It is and you know, it's actually something. When we started farm to school in Oregon. This may not be where people are for farm to school, you know 'cause, I think we all have a different view. It could be scratch cooking could be something your grandma brought. And what we thought of in Oregon was.. now again, this is going back to 2007, but if we looked at the two most popular foods that kids eat to the highest participation, so those were pizza and burritos. And we reformulated those. They already met the strict nutrition guidelines of child nutrition. But if we included more organ agricultural products, it means kids have more access to organ products and it's better opportunity for farmers so, it was a start. And what I also realized too early on is, you know, we were going for all scratch. It just sounds so amazing and totally impossible in a lot of different places. You know, not only folks have the resources. I mean they don't have the resources, but you know it takes training. Takes equipment. It takes distribution. It takes having a dishwasher. To do dishes and trays and utensils. So every school site is unique and everyone's trying to figure it out the best way they can. And you know, I was reflecting on the farm to school. You know, years ago and decade or more ago, we used to call it Farm to institution. I mean, it's still called “Farm to Institution.” But we would have the national farmed institution conference and it just didn't give as much a draw as farm to school or farm to early childcare. It sure does, makes you question what kind of institution.”

00:03:14 Joshua Miller

Sounds boring.

00:03:20 Rick

Also, people don't even know what farm to school is yet, so that just confuses them on another level when you have to 1st explain institution and then back up and say it's part of farm to school, which they don't know about, so.

00:03:33 Michelle

Yeah, well, and the reason why we all did coalesce though, right, Joshua is that there's a lot of similarities because when you're purchasing for group meals, or you're purchasing seasonally or locally or regionally like producers can be scaled or have different kinds of contracts or you know, come in certain amounts and you need certain equipment in the collegiate and college setting as you do other institutions like healthcare.

00:04:06 Joshua Miller

Exactly. And the great thing about all those industries and the little impact that I've been touching all of them is exactly that those opportunities for collaboration and borrowing solutions from the other segment bring it to the other. So, so true.

00:04:25 Rick

So you are in north, the northeast? Albany, NY.

00:04:32 Joshua Miller

Yep, that's correct.

00:04:33 Rick

OK. Just to let you know, I'm also outside of Albany, but Albany Oregon so. So I got excited for just a second. I thought you were my neighbor, but no.

00:04:40 Michelle

You're right down the road. We're close talking about adjacent or transferable solutions. One of the things I wanted to ask you about is sustainability with farm to school, you know, farm to school is, you know, a huge could be a huge contributor. Sustainability. But I'm wondering what are some things you're considering in that space?

00:05:08 Joshua Miller

Yeah, so sustainability huge advocate for just kind of fell in love with not only the work that goes into it, but the why of course it's kind of hard to be passionate about it if you're not interested in the why and with from the school, it's it really hits home for me because it's supporting local and which is great. And that's one great aspect. This is supporting sustainability in school food service, but really there is other opportunities to head on within sustainability. And with regard to from the school and oftentimes we tend to put sustainability in a box of environmental and maybe a little bit economic and there's more to it. There's three arms, environmental, economic and social sustainability, and really trying to pay attention to those three arms of sustainability and driving it home with our farm to school efforts being a part of it. So that's if you don't mind, I can start with the environmental.

00:06:12 Rick

OK, let's. Please do. Yeah. I was gonna say, like, what does that mean? So feel free to begin.

00:06:12 Michelle

Let's dig into this.

00:06:18 Joshua Miller

Yeah. So in terms of the environment, so we we're reducing the food miles of sourcing our food from local providers, local farmers working with items that are in season less process. That's all great. But then you also have the fact of where is the food coming from. And part of where I want to head on with all three of these is telling the story. Telling the story for your students, telling the story for your food service team members, how many miles away is that food coming from? And you can get into geeky data analytics of how that's impacting environment or you can literally just say this firm is 25 miles. And starting to tell the story of that with again everyone and again getting to the environmental part of it, not wasting that local food. It's not wasting food in general is big, but if you're spending 50,000 in local foods, but 5000 is wasted, is that really doing all good for the local environment? And so really taking care of not wasting and even if you compost, that's a great way to divert it from the landfills. But at the end of the day, guess what? It still took the energy to cook that food. It still takes energy to come and pick up the waste and convert it into compost and also educating the consumers, your students are eating local apples in New York, right? If they're throwing it in the trash? That's not good. So really, educating them on the environment with regard to your from the school, I think it's definitely one of the ways that we can help continue this trend and this needs for environmental sustainability.

00:08:03 Michelle

How about.. I appreciate it when you were saying about taking care of the food service team or the human aspect about it. What are what are you thinking about that?

00:08:13 Joshua Miller

Yes. So again, we often forget about the social aspect of yes, we're there for the students, we're there to support their parents, but their team members that are showing up every day, it's hard work and can't take that for granted. And we need to make sure we're supporting them and so, well, our farm to school programs are educating students about where their food is coming from and the importance of healthy eating and hands on learning. Why can't those same opportunities be put in front of your team members? We have posters in the cafeterias saying, you know, the nutrition, you know, benefits of broccoli or whatever.. your fruits or vegetables? Bring them into opportunities. If a farmer's coming in and speak with the students, why can't they stop by the kitchen and get to meet the shop that's actually working with the food and preparing it? So really helping get them engaged, whether it's all those things, whether it's menu input, recipe input, things like that and I can even go down further down the rabbit hole of you know, wellness which is a little bit outside of the farm, the school, I mean to find the school initiatives but, wellness challenges initiatives. That's all engaging aspects of your program and when they are more engaged with being in the team and working together and serving the food and being happy it makes it's a win, win, win for everyone. So why can't you have Wellness challenges like how many 30 minute walks? Are you doing this month or and have a competition out of it. How many nights are you getting? 8 hours of sleep or have little funky days like share a compliment. They had everyone going around sharing compliments with each other and the students. And even down to mental health resource, we know that's a hot topic. And just having the list of resources that are available. Notice I'm not saying you need to go and open up a gym, you don't need to hire trainers. I'm not telling you to go out and have a mental health specialist on staff. These are all things that are essentially free, even a little bit of time, that it takes to get them going. That really it's costing you nothing and it's staying more engaged with your team and again supporting the social sustainability part of it. It's not just about the students, it's about your team members as well.

00:10:35 Michelle

It does, though, sound like things that are well within reach.

00:10:39 Rick

Hey Joshua, I had a question on your mission statement on your website, which I'll leave a link in the show notes for this. It says our mission of remarkable academic foods is to positively impact consumers and operators through hyper collaboration. I'm curious what that is. that's a new one on me. I know what collaboration and I'm guessing what this would mean, but what what's your take on that hyper-collaboration?

00:11:07 Joshua Miller

Yeah, hyper collaboration is collaborating on all different levels across diverse disciplines, right? So it's not… I'm not putting myself in a box and saying I'm only going to work with X schools with by saying, you know, oh, I'm only going to do New York State or I'm only going to do it in northeast.

00:11:13 Rick

OK.

00:11:28 Joshua Miller

I'm collaborating with others, for example, I'm going to California to do training and then collaborating with multiple disciplines is I'm not an expert at everything. I'm not the end all be all. No one is, for that matter, at least I don't think so. I haven't found anyone yet, but even with regard to consulting, I may not be the expert in everything, but I have a network of other professionals. I'm a part of a consultant organization called Food Service Consultants Society International and they have the Americas Division. I'm a part of that and grant again. It's a great network of other consultants and other specialties that I can bring to the table, whether it's recommended and you work directly with them or not, or we bring them in and we create a team to help with whatever your goals are. I'm just all about collaborating, meeting other people and helping each other out and not to say that consultants know the answers to everything. Operators are huge in collaboration too, so collaborating with the operators as well is another aspect to it. So just another way to say open arm collaboration.

00:12:35 Rick

OK. I appreciate that. Thank you. And you answered my next question. I was going to say was where is your typical audience and it looks like your nationwide be not just in the New England area, you were just saying you're going out to the left coast says it were too. So you can your mobile, is that right you can Go anywhere, OK?

00:12:54 Joshua Miller

Exactly. Exactly.

00:12:57 Michelle

And one of the things you know, we were talking about sustainability and I know you have different areas of expertise and you help people think through equipment. One of the things we do on state level and nationally is we give out equipment grants to schools who are looking for different things and I was just wondering when you're considering sustainability or farm to school? Have you seen particular kinds of equipment or setup that is more useful? Yeah, or needed, or that we're missing. Just curious what your thoughts are advantageous on that.

00:13:28 Joshua Miller

Yeah. Yeah, I will say it's definitely case like this. There's no one-size-fits-all for that. And one of the reasons for that is because of the disruptor of electrification. And for example, in New York City, there's a charter school I've been talking with that has equipment. And everyone's concerned in New York City about the equipment being mandated to be electric in the future, so they're starting to think about that because obviously in California, that's the big things and you're tend to follow that. So that's one example and why it can't be really a one size fits all. But I will say, in a general aspect, smart equipment is something I'm a fan of, but it's not for every single operation because you can't depend on everything in every school to be able to understand the bells and whistles that comes on them and how to work them, which is why another aspect of what I bring to the table is training, and I've actually partnered with a training company called Pineapple Academy where we actually make it easy for the frontline workers to access training content, micro learning videos it's 5 minutes or less on just how to simply operate the oven, right? If it's a comfy oven and it has 25 different functions and all kinds of buttons, why can't they just walk up to it and get a quick tutorial? Deal with visuals on how to operate it, and then another one on how to clean it and things like that, but I'm a huge fan of the equipment that's getting smarter for so many reasons in terms of operational efficiency.

00:15:05 Michelle

Well, and one of the main messages of farm to school and like the National Farm to school night and lots of different state movements is values based values aligned meals and one of the components of that is more scratch cooking and I'm wondering like what, what kind of equipment or sustainability considerations? Could schools be thinking about towards that?

00:15:33 Joshua Miller

Yes. So I think for sure the combi oven is a big part of it because you're not having a separate femur and a separate convection oven for your equipment, which is hopefully helping you shirt shirting your footprint of equipment in your kitchen and they're doing so many different functions. Now you can have these combi ovens that are doing smoking? Right. I can put a smoker box in it, and now all of a sudden I have smoked meats on my menu and I didn't have to order. A separate smoker. So, that's new, that's so versatile- equipment is definitely up there and there's some other equipment that is again on the higher end section, but it does many functions in terms of sauteing and boiling. And I know that we're not really frying, but you know doing any shallow salt tank things like that, and it is definitely another aspect. So equipment that can do more than one task. Even down to your holding boxes, right, you have warning boxes that hold your food, and now they have them where they can help preserve the quality a little better by helping control the humidity. And we take that for granted. We absolutely do. We just stick it in the pop-ups that's been around forever and we just go out and replace it with one that does the exact same thing. But I've seen it with my own eyes. I've tasted it with my, with I, something. I tasted it like the quality and these holding cabinets can do and helping preserve the quality of your food after it comes out of the oven long term it makes a huge difference when you're able to serve it and know that it's being served at a better quality than if you didn't have that piece of equipment.

00:17:20 Rick

You know, one of the things when I was a food service director back in the day. In that same vein, you have a tiny kitchen and you only can afford one or two pieces of equipment. One of the my favorite ones was always a tilt skillet too, because you could fill it up like you put a couple inches of water, and it could be hot. Holding it could be a Bain Marie. You could use this as a griddle. You can fill it up and make 40 gallons of Stew with it, it was like, like you said, versatile. You could do many things with it. You wouldn't need 5 pieces of equipment. It does the job of five or six pieces. So yeah, anyway, just not to get in the weeds and equipment. This isn't the equipment show, but just it's just no, it just made me wax philosophical on. Yeah..

00:18:02 Michelle

Yeah, you guys are flipping, geeking out here. He does look very contemplative. You can't, listeners can't see him, but he's very, very equipment, contemplative.

00:18:15 Rick

OK. We promise we'll stop talking about equipment.

00:18:17 Michelle

But no, really. Like for. OK, so for all of us who aren't gonna do large scale institutional K12 equipment, what are some calls to action or considerations for sustainability?

00:18:31 Joshua Miller

Yeah. So I think the first and foremost of action for me personally, I might be speaking to 100% at all audience, but I'm not spontaneous. I'm a huge planner. Like I said, I'm a data guy, so plan it out. I don't care if you just pull up a Word document, and if you're taking tips from this show or other for whatever it is. Have a plan. And just if it starts off with ideas and then down the road you can add some dates and add you know people and you can work on these different projects with I think having a plan of action is huge because it's easy to hear all the ideas and all the solutions that exist and get lost in the mess of it. Right. If you start to organize it. And again, put a plan of action out so that you are seeing what you want to learn more about what you want to implement. I think that's the first huge step to success in any of these efforts.

00:19:30 Michelle

Yeah. It's like there's so many things to be working on at any given time and you know, you can get lost along way. But having something to aim towards, yes.

00:19:38 Joshua Miller

Just like we did, we went from food to equipment, right? It's just it's like it's easy to get lost in all the options that are out there. So yeah, yeah.

00:19:53 Rick

Well, Joshua, I wanna thank you so much for being on our program today. It was an honor.

00:19:59 Joshua Miller

Thank you for having me again. I'm so glad to add value for your audience today.

00:20:02 Michelle

Yeah, Joshua, you sure did. And you added value to my life as well. Thank you. And we'd really like to thank everyone for listening. Farm to school was written and directed and produced by Rick Sherman and Michelle Markesteyn. Farm to School was made possible by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.

00:20:17 Rick

Content and ideas on the farm to school podcast does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Oregon State University, Oregon Department of Education and the United States Department of Agriculture, the USDA, Oregon Department of Ed and Oregon State University are equal opportunity providers and employers.

00:20:35 Michelle

Do you want to learn more about Farm to school? Check out other episode show notes and contact information by searching Up Farm to school podcast, OSU.

00:20:43 Rick

Yeah, we would love to hear from you. Stop by the website Michelle just mentioned to say hello or give us an idea for a future podcast.

00:20:51 Michelle

Thanks everyone. Thanks again Joshua.

00:20:53 Rick

Thanks Joshua.

00:20:55 Joshua Miller

Thank you. Bye everyone.

00:20:56 Michelle

Bye.