UNITY — Two Unity projects are among seven Maine organizations that will share a portion of a USDA’s School Food System Transformation Challenge, which is a part of the USDA’s Healthy Meals Incentive Initiative. Maine’s portion of the federal funds, $7,3387,839, was put into the hands of Full Plates Full Potential to disburse. 

Applicants could apply could request between $100,000 and $1,500,000.

A panel of 26 experts from the school food system reviewed 18 eligible applications and recommended these projects for funding:

Halal Meal Production Hub (Unity, ME) will pilot and develop culturally responsive halal certified heat and serve value-added school meals using local ingredients.

Streamlining Access to Maine Grown K-12 Products (Unity, ME) will expand existing work to aggregate and distribute high-quality local foods to Maine schools using a centralized online ordering system and collaborative distribution infrastructure.

Good Grains on the Go (Skowhegan, ME) will pilot and develop local, value-added “convenience foods” popular with students like pizza, calzones, and other whole-grain based breakfast and lunch items using Maine grains and other local ingredients.

Fishermen Feeding K-12 Mainers (Brunswick, ME) will expand an existing program to get local fish into schools and will also pilot and develop local, value-added seafood products for Maine schools.

School-Based Food Hub (Auburn, ME) will establish a collaborative, regional, school food processing and distribution hub in the Lewiston-Auburn area.

Somerset County Farm to School Initiative (Skowhegan, ME) will build upon an existing partnership between Somerset County local schools, Somerset Public Health, and the Somerset County Jail to supply local food to the schools starting with seedlings planted by the students that are then grown, harvested, and processed by the inmates .

Local Food Switchboard (statewide) will create an online local food hub and database to strengthen connections within Maine’s local food system to increase local food processing capacity, expand distribution channels, and ultimately connect more local food products to Maine schools.

“This group of projects represents a robust cohort with the potential for far reaching impacts that will strengthen Maine’s K-12 school food system, and address the challenges and opportunities laid out in the School Food System Innovation RFA around sourcing and serving more local food in Maine schools,” said Full Plates, in a news release.

USDA funds were also awarded $2.7 million to The Illinois Public Health Institute for distribution among 16 organizations.