She Wanted to Make a Chicken Sandwich With Fewer Chemicals for Schoolkids. How Hard Could It Be?

Between tight budgets and the stranglehold of big corporations on the school food supply, the system seems stacked against healthy options

After more than three decades of working to feed students under increasingly difficult circumstances, Katie Wilson was fed up. The leader of the Urban School Food Alliance, a non-profit that supports nutrition programs at the country’s largest school districts, wanted to do something to disrupt a school food status quo she says is “so broken it’s unbelievable”.

Wilson’s biggest beef is with the convoluted and overly restrictive way schools are forced to purchase food, something she thought the alliance could start to change. In 2021, she decided to try something deceptively simple: creating a recipe for a chicken patty.

Since the alliance’s member districts cover enormous school systems in cities including Boston, New York City and Miami, expanding the limited number of producers they can buy from would be monumental. In any given year, the 19 school districts in the alliance serve about $40m worth of chicken to students, giving it the purchasing power to make a statement.