MPS Commissary Tour Turns Page on Past

 Minneapolis Public Schools hired Bertrand Weber as director of nutrition services for MPS in January, and he turned quickly to improving the district’s offerings to students, which includes bringing salad bars in the city’s high schools this fall—and in all schools by the spring 2013. His goal is also to greatly improve the MPS Farm-to-School program by creating relationships with local farmers and processors. He had a little help with his efforts on May 7 from the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, which organized a facility tour for farmers and distributors. The facility? The district’s massive central commissary, through which go the 2.1 million breakfasts and 3.7 million lunches the city’s public schools serve annually. At the moment, it’s basically a packing facility. Weber has a plan to change that, however, and the tour was a starting point. “The five-year plan is to make into a central kitchen,” he said. “As this happens, and we have some facilities to do some processing, we’ll bring more in-house, do scratch cooking.”