April 2025 Newsletter: Cultivating Growth from the Ground Up

Apr 2

🌎 Happy Earth Day!

As we enjoy the beautiful weather, SpringForward Feeds is embracing growth—not just in the fresh ingredients we serve, but also in our commitment to sustainability and staff development. From reducing food waste to implementing sustainable kitchen practices, we’re building the foundation for our program.
A good gardener knows that a thriving garden starts with healthy soil. The healthier your soil, the deeper and stronger the roots can grow, and the more fruitful your garden will be.

Healthy Soil

Hands planting seedlings in soil with gardening gloves and a trowel.

In our school food program, we actively combat food waste through Offer vs. Serve, a strategy that allows students to choose only the foods they intend to eat, reducing unnecessary waste.

Studies show that up to 30% of school food goes uneaten and millions of gallons of milk are discarded each year. We prioritize training our staff using dialed-in systems and scaled-out recipes tailored to the exact number of students we plan to feed, ensuring precise portions and reducing overproduction.

In addition to preventing waste before it happens, we also compost daily in our kitchen, collecting fruit and vegetable scraps to be turned into nutrient-rich soil. This process closes the loop, removing food waste from our landfills and helps us build a rich healthy soil.

In schools alone, discarded food contributes to more than 1.9 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions each year
(World Wildlife Foundation)

Growing Roots

Each month, our kitchen team participates in focused training sessions to strengthen skills and deepen understanding of the important work we do every day.
This month, we’re diving into the fundamentals: the National School Lunch Program guidelines, kitchen math for accuracy and efficiency, and essential knife skills.

These areas may seem basic, but they are the “Roots” of our kitchen—forming the strong foundation needed to support sustainable practices.

When our team is equipped with knowledge and confidence in these core areas, we reduce waste, improve consistency, and make smarter use of our resources, all of which are key to operating a kitchen that delivers real results for both students and the environment.

Ready to Flourish

SpringForward Feeds is built on a powerful framework: meeting the needs of our team creates a diverse and healthy soil that supports strong roots and fruitful opportunities for everyone.
SpringForward’s investment in this foundation is already yielding results—nurturing growth and creating lasting change in our kitchens, and our schools.