Projects must be collaboratively administered by at least three partners, with one lead partner
and at least two partner organizations. All partners should be involved in implementing the
project. One of the three partners must be from the food industry and one must be a school
food authority (SFA).
Potential partners include:
School food authorities that operate the NSLP (at least one SFA is required)
Food industry (at least one food industry partner is required). This includes:
Food manufacturers or producers
Food processors
Food aggregators (e.g., food hubs)
Food distributors
Growers and producers (e.g., farms, orchards, ranches, fisheries)
Food support organizations, including food systems-focused nonprofits
Public sector agencies (e.g., local, county, or state government agency or department)
Indian Tribal Organizations
Community-based organizations
Small businesses
Other food system partners
Objectives of Project SCALES
Applicants should propose innovative and collaborative approaches that reimagine the school food system and that could be sustained and scaled elsewhere. We encourage applicants to think creatively about transformational partnerships and projects, particularly those that bring new industry into the school food supply chain.
We invite applicants to submit a proposal for grant funding to support projects that show clear potential for achieving one or more of these goals:
improving the K-12 school food supply chain by incentivizing innovation and building partnerships between various entities of the food system, including manufacturers or producers;
reducing barriers for schools related to sourcing, ordering, processing, and/or storing locally-sourced foods and beverages;
supporting school nutrition teams in using fresh local ingredients, being responsive to student preferences and cultural relevance, and increasing scratch cooking;
leveraging social responsibility of food industry to address innovative solutions for the school food system; and
identifying sustainable solutions and best practices for the K-12 food system that are scalable and replicable.
Team Eligibility
Projects must be collaboratively administered by at least three partners, with one lead partner and at least two partner organizations. All partners should be involved in implementing the project. Teams must include at least one school food authority, and at least one partner from industry. Potential partners include:
School food authorities that operate the National School Lunch Program (required)
Food industry (required):
Food manufacturers or producers
Food processors
Food aggregators (e.g., food hubs)
Food distributors
Growers and producers (e.g., farms, orchards, ranches, fisheries)
Food support organizations, including food systems–focused nonprofits
Public sector agency (e.g., local, county, or state government agency or department)
Indian Tribal Organizations
Community-based organizations
Small businesses
Other food system partners
Request for Applications (RFA): https://projectscales.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/SCALES-RFA-Cohort-…