This dissertation research will engage in a comparative study of foodservice labor in three states. Qualitative data will be collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and participant observation in (1) Louisiana, which has a strong statewide tradition of scratch cooking in its schools, (2) Rhode Island, which has almost entirely outsourced its school food programs to food service management companies, and (3) Minnesota, which has recently completed a two-year state-wide program to reskill and retool school foodservice employees to be able to source, cook, and promote ?real? foods.
This study has the potential to inform current school food reforms in light of the regulatory changes ushered in by the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010. The results of this study will be of value to school food professionals, state and regional planners, policy analysts, non-profits, labor unions, and businesses as they sort through priorities and strategies for improving both school food and local economies. The study will highlight instances where school food provides both high quality jobs for local residents and high quality food for children, while still operating under the existing financial and legal constraints of the NSLP.
The results of this research suggest that we must come to understand poor quality food not as synonymous with "school food," but as symptomatic of deep-seated issues associated with the deskilling and devaluing of labor across the food chain. In unpacking this argument I structure the dissertation around two key historical moments: the turn to heat-and-serve meals and the ongoing return to scratch cooking. The first half of the project explains how the processed food industry succeeded in redefining the "job" of school feeding as the efficient delivery of nutrients, as opposed to a collection of tasks that feminist scholars refer to as "reproductive labor" (i.e. nourishing bodies, shaping food preferences, teaching etiquette, and providing emotional support). This devaluation of school foodservice was further institutionalized in the early 1970s by federal policies and technologies that were first introduced as a solution to the financial and logistical problems of rapidly expanding access to the NSLP in the wake of the "right to lunch movement" that occured in the late 1960s. The government eased restrictions on private contractors and promoted centralized and mechanized food production technologies (most infamously the TV dinner-style frozen "mealpack"). Whereas others may view this transformation in terms of expediency and political compromise, I demonstrate that it had severe ecological consequences. School feeding was disembedded from local foodsheds to the detriment of public health and worker livelihoods. Children’s health was also affected by this transformation. The rise of pre-packaging technologies, heat-and-serve meals, and heavily processed "modern" commodities exposed them to a wide range of food additives, trace antibiotics, pesticide residues, and hormonally active plastics. These types of prepared foods are disproportionately used in urban areas and elementary schools, which hints at the environmental racism inherent in the system and provides cause to worry since young children are especially vulnerable due to their body size and phase of development. In the second half of the dissertation, I use data from visits to production facilities, industry meetings, and sales calls to demonstrate how the processed food industry markets their "clean label" products (i.e. high quality processed foods made without artificial or other unwanted ingredients) and value-added locally grown foods (that largely travel through conventional supply chains) as a simple and cost-effective solution to the desire for real foods. This strategy, which I term "real food-lite," relies on the substitution of inputs rather than deeper reforms to the food system. Facing conditions of what science and technology studies refers to as "socio-technological lock-in," I posit that school food authorities are predisposed to accepting industry-based solutions that fit within the existing heat-and-serve paradigm. Without deeper reforms, I argue that "real food-lite" creates a profitable niche market for the agri-food industry and reinforces existing power dynamics. On the other hand, interviews and site visits to school districts that are investing in what I term "community-based culinary capacity" present an alternative approach to bringing real food to schools. They are re-training their workforce to cook from scratch with raw ingredients, and often encouraging them to use their personal creativity and ambition to develop solutions to the challenges of agricultural seasonality and children’s limited taste preferences. My data suggest that this approach creates higher quality jobs in the foodservice sector—an important social justice goal—while fostering personal relationships between children and the frontline workers who feed them. Moreover the literature on socio-cultural determinants of taste indicates that this is exactly the type of interaction that supports children’s willingness to try unfamiliar foods. Finally, I conclude the dissertation by arguing that future NSLP policies should revalue the role of reproductive labor and the staff that performs it: Doing so will improve children’s diets and build food system resilience across community, regional, and national scales.
