From Fine Dining to School Food

Seven years ago, I was introduced to a philanthropic organization called DREAM. DREAM started in 1991 as an after-school baseball program for underprivileged youth in East Harlem, and since has expanded into a network of charter schools servicing low-income communities throughout New York City.

DREAM is committed to the “whole child” model, supporting all of its students’ needs, including academic, social-emotional and physical. As DREAM has grown, so has Katzman’s relationship with the organization, and today I’m proud to serve on its board.

Last school year, DREAM reached one of its biggest milestones to date — the launch of a new school in the South Bronx that was built specifically with DREAM’s “whole child” commitment in mind, including a state-of-the-art scratch kitchen. For some DREAM students, the only guaranteed meals they can count on each day are provided at school, so creating a school food program with delicious, nutritious offerings is essential to DREAM’s success.

DREAM’s goal for the program is to ensure its students have access to healthy and delicious food, and learn about why that’s important, instilling lifelong good habits from an early age. If DREAM can do this year after year, decade after decade, supporting children through early adulthood, it hopes to drive transformational, generational change.

I’m pleased to share that last year’s launch of DREAM’s new school, scratch kitchen, and school food program was successful, and DREAM has expanded its from-scratch cooking program to its second school in the Bronx, which opened in August. This is due in large part to our partnership with Brigaid.

Brigaid is a coast-to-coast network of professional chefs who apply their culinary and operational expertise to help school foodservice programs achieve their goals. Founded by Dan Giusti, former head chef at the No. 1 world-renowned restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, Brigaid’s work spans school districts throughout the country. It believes that everyone deserves good food.

The process of working with Giusti and Brigaid was seamless. We reached out to Dan as soon as we knew that we wanted to operate a scratch kitchen in the new DREAM school, and he helped us set up the kitchen, equipment and infrastructure for a successful school food program. He also helped us find a head chef, the amazing Chef Perse Vordokas, who has been a perfect fit for the role, and has staffed the school food department. Then Brigaid’s regional chef, April Kindt, helped to train the staff, and has stayed with DREAM as it has rolled out the school food program, ensuring its success.

Children are our future, and we have to invest in them now. It is so important for youth to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Each day, DREAM serves breakfast, lunch and snacks at no cost to its students. In the past year since DREAM launched its scratch kitchen, it has seen a 31% increase in lunch participation, and approximately 75% of students expressed satisfaction with the quality of food and service.

I’ve experienced firsthand during lunch how Chef Vordokas continually interacts with the students and asks for feedback on what they’ve eaten.

To achieve a successful school food program, the food needs to not only be nutritious, but also taste good to the students and their young taste buds. And as Chef Vordokas will tell you, the students do not hold back with their feedback!

The kitchen is continuously evolving and improving, with a goal of 100% student participation. To engage the support of the students’ families, DREAM also invites parents and families to come for lunch, and experience the food program themselves.

So, if you’re a wholesaler/distributor looking to learn more about institutional foodservice, Brigaid is a great resource to keep in mind.

Children are our future, and we have to invest in them now. It is so important for youth to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, and it’s been incredibly rewarding to see the work DREAM has done over the past year thanks to Brigaid.

Stefanie Katzman is executive vice president and fourth generation in her family’s 100-year-old produce wholesale/distribution business, Katzman. Headquartered in New York City, Katzman is SQF-certified and sources nationally and internationally to provide a full line of fresh fruits and vegetables, services and offerings throughout the Northeast United States. Stefanie is also the co-owner of MamaMia Produce, a grower/shipper based in New Jersey with farms in the Dominican Republic. Stefanie is chair of the IFPA Wholesaler-Distributor Council and is on the IFPA Board of Directors. Passionate about children’s nutrition, she sits on the board of directors at DREAM, a public charter school and youth development organization based in NYC, and she is also on the New York Advisory Board for Sharing Excess, a philanthropic organization that redistributes between 1 and 3 million pounds of food every week to provide equitable food access to communities.