He once worked at the world’s best restaurant. Now he wants to make US school food better | US news
At the Dream Mott Haven Charter School this summer, more than a hundred catering professionals have lined up at the cafeteria to enjoy a school lunch prepared by the brigaid culinary team.
Some participants grove as schoolchildren while transporting red fire engine sets filled with striped pernil plates, fried plantains and arroz con gandules through the dining room, taking seats on long cafeteria tables and behaving with foreigners like the first day of school. A César Caesar support salad of Chou Frisit and a fresh watermelon has assured that the meal met the US directives of the Nutrition Department of the Department of Agriculture; According to a round table before lunch, he also respected strict budgetary directives – with ingredients totaling only $ 2.71 per meal.
The Chefed-Up school lunch was served as part of the first brigaid summit, a two-day symposium in the Bronx dedicated to food problems and advocacy. Earlier in the day, the affable founder of the company, Dan Giusti, dissected the cost of each ingredient and explained why the placement of professional chefs in school kitchens helps them make the most of their meager budgets. Each penny is important when the federal reimbursement rate for school lunches is only $ 4.62 per meal served, which must also cover labor costs, supplies and other operational expenses. In the United States, 30 million students of more than 100,000 schools participate in the national school lunch program, which serves nearly 5 billion meals per year. According to Brigaid, the average student consumes more than 2,000 school lunches from kindergarten to 12th year.
Giusti began to cook professionally at 15, ultimately amounts to lead the kitchens in great restaurants such as 1789 and Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington DC. After spending three years in Copenhagen as an executive chef of Noma – considered by many as the best restaurant in the world – he left gastronomy 10 years ago to start Brigaid, a profit company dedicated to improving food services programs in public schools, hospitals, prisons, assisted life facilities and other establishments. Since then, his company has extended to 80 employees, including a stable of 75 professional leaders working in 45 partnerships in eight states. But despite the growth of the company, Giusti affirms that the greatest obstacle to the recruitment of talent continues to be convincing professional leaders that there are interesting culinary opportunities outside the catering industry.
“For any reason, many leaders do not even associate to work in an institution as a viable profession,” he said.
During its mandate at the Noma, the restaurant retained its two -star Michelin rating and dominated the list of the best 50 restaurants in the world for several years. But feeding the community has become a higher vocation, the one that has made Giusti wonder why so many chefs define success by restaurant prices and critical reception.
His message inspired former restaurant chefs from his culinary team – many of whom defeated in gourmet careers to join Brigaid.
“I grew up on the free lunch program, so there is a large part that really resonates for me,” said Mai Giffard, head of the program in the central school district of Rancho Cucamonga, California, before enlisting with Brigaid in 2023, Giffard owned his own bakery and worked in the best Michelin stale kitchens, including Smythe in Chicago. “With gastronomy, you cook for such a small percentage of people who can afford to eat in such restaurants. With brigaid, I am able to reach thousands and thousands of children.”
To attract talents, brigaid departure wages for chefs exceed that of most restaurants – on average around $ 90,000 per year with total advantages for program leaders, proportional to experience (health insurance, paid disease and retirement services are still rarities in the restaurant world). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the middle remuneration for chefs and head cooks in 2024 was $ 60,990 per year. Consequently, most professional chefs are transient, bouncing a restaurant work next to acquire new skills and developing their curriculum vitae but rarely stay in the same place.
“Something that frustrates me in the catering industry is that I don’t think there are many possibilities to develop people beyond cooking,” said Giusti. “Cooking in a school or an institution may not make you a better cook, but that makes you a better chef, a better leader and a better professional.”
Nicole Meschi is the main director of nutrition services for the Cupertino Union school district in California, who enters her third year as a brigaid client. She said: “Imagine going to a restaurant and the 600 people for the night appear at the same time and you have 30 minutes to feed them. I think it is one of the most shocking parts for the leaders who come here.”
Alex Leigh, a regional chief of New London, Connecticut, a public school system since 2018, agreed that there was a learning curve. Coming from the best groups of restaurants such as the manufactured hospitality of Tom Colicchio, he stressed that it took time to adapt to the pace and the rhythm of school kitchens. “If the chefs are trying to enter and do this space in a restaurant, as opposed to the adaptation and the use of these skills and the organizational parts they have, it is then that they are fighting,” he said.
While the needs of each individual school district differ, the main role of a brigaid chief is to support an existing team of cafeteria workers. For former catering leaders accustomed to continuing perfection, working alongside different degrees of degrees of skills can be intimidating, but also enlightening. “The things I want to cook have changed,” said Octavio Gaytan, a leader based in Austin who joined Brigaid in 2021. “Now I want to cook things that I know that children will be excited”, as well as unusual school menu such as butter chicken or Kimchi.
With the help of brigaid, New London public schools have moved away from the food of frozen foods frozen to the kitchen, including the development of the roasted pork recipe that was served at the top in July. Last year, the district signed a five -year extension with Brigaid to provide continuous support for the six cuisine in the district which serve around 3,000 students per day – an expenditure which represents 3% of the total annual food budget of the district. “It was a very intentional and aware decision that we made knowing that we will continue to cut money in our budget because of the value it brings to the district and to our program,” said Samantha Wilson, director of the children’s nutrition program in New London.
Exhausting the intense pressure from restaurants has given many brigaid chefs the opportunity to think about their old career and reconsider their priorities. “I take the most [money] I have never done, “said Poliyasandra Cabrera, a chief based in San Diego who oversees several school districts in California.” I actually have health insurance that I don’t have to pay and I receive vacation. I never had a vacation.
Giffard, chef Rancho Cucamonga, said: “The work has released a large part of my mental capacity to be part of the community and have pastime again. Now, I no longer have to fight so hard between hobbies or sleep.”
These epiphanies make the prospect of returning to gastronomy almost impossible for most of the organizing chiefs of the organization. “For me now, success is to find where you are supposed to work,” said Leigh. “As much as I like restaurants and I am indebted to them for where I am today, I do not see people where I could go back.”
