MADISON, Wis. — The Madison Metropolitan School District rolled out a brand new pilot lunch program Thursday, focused on putting more fresh food on kids’ plates.

The program involves two made from scratch lunches per week for students at Nuestro Munda Elementary School. Thursday, kids were treated to a meal of pollo loco, or marinated and spiced chicken, as well as honey ginger tofu, cilantro lime rice and roasted broccoli.

“We wanted to give them fresher food, we wanted to cut out the processing and the ingredients,” said Josh Perkins, director of food and nutrition for the district.

Rolling out a program like this has taken a lot of work on the kitchen staff’s part, between training on the equipment and learning the new recipes. 

Perkins said this initiative was led just as much by students as it was by staff.

“Some of the things we heard most frequently were ‘we would like to see … the care in the food, it’s fresher,’” Perkins said. “‘We have aromas, we understand what the food is.’”

While Thursday was the first day kids were able to taste the new food, Nuestro Mundo Principal Joshua Forehand said it’s already taking off.

“[Students] are excited. They’re really pumped up about what’s happening,” he said. “[There were] some people going around with a voting system, where they can choose ‘I love it’, ‘I like it’ or ‘I tried it’. And right now, ‘I love it’ is winning by a landslide.”

The program is still in its early stages right now. It’ll be tested at Nuestro Mundo for the rest of the school year, then Perkins said they’ll reassess and decide whether they can expand it further.

In the future, they hope to roll it out five days a week, district wide.

“That is really what they should be getting, good nourishment, fresh foods that are appealing to them,” Perkins said. “That’s all in service and supporting the objectives of the school.”