Ahead of the first day of school on Monday, a new, state-of-the-art food kitchen in Perris is preparing fresh meals for 20,000 students in the Val Verde Unified School District.
The kitchen is revolutionizing how the district provides healthy meals, Director of Nutrition Services Chris Hutchinson said, ensuring students at the district’s 22 school sites can succeed in the classroom.
“For this district, it’s a game changer,” Hutchinson said. “We’ve never had a production kitchen. We have always worked out of our cafeterias.”
The facility, the first of its kind for the district, has been in the works for three years.
Hutchinson said the production kitchen allows the staff to prepare fresh meals that are higher in nutrient content because the meals are served within three weeks without preservatives. The staff is also monitoring sodium and sugar limits.
The 19,400-square-foot kitchen is stocked with premium equipment, packaging facilities, depressed freezers and forklift-accessible walk-in coolers. Meal options for the students range from soup to pastries to pasta.
The site will also serve as a testing kitchen for new recipes, teaching students culinary skills for a healthier future.
“Our test kitchen has many purposes, but one of the most wonderful things for students is that we’re able to do education for culinary and nutrition here,” Hutchinson said.
The new kitchen is now fully functional, servicing all school sites within the district.
Students who ate meals at school had better attendance, academic achievement and overall health, according to a 2020 school nutrition and meal cost study.
California’s 2024‑25 budget includes a $1.8 billion Proposition 98 General Fund and $2.7 billion federal funding to provide a projected 884 million school meals to students, according to the Legal Analyst’s Office.