Sophomore Kahri Spearman, left center, reaches for fresh cucumber on the salad bar at Red Bank High School on Friday. Pikeville apples, plus cucumber and green peppers are just some of the local vegetables available to students, according to Jim Hill, assistant director of school nutrition for Hamilton County Schools.Farm-to-table is all the rage these days, as upscale restaurants in Chattanooga and elsewhere strive to put local produce on their tables.
Add Red Bank High School to the list.
On Friday, Red Bank High students lunched on apples from Wooden's Apple House in Pikeville, Tenn., and cucumbers and green peppers from a producer in Greenfield, Tenn., said Jim Hill, assistant director for the Hamilton County Schools Nutrition Program. The farms are both within 100 miles of Chattanooga, he said, which counts as local.
"Local is fresher," Hill said. "We feel it's just fresher than coming in from South America or California."
Students loaded up on the produce at the school's salad bar. Red Bank is one of a dozen middle and high schools equipped with salad bars by the Hamilton County Department of Education. A 2012 federal grant bought the salad bars for 11 schools, Hill said, while Soddy-Daisy High School already had one.
Seeking local produce "is something we do on our own," Hill said.
District officials instructed the schools' supplier, T&T Produce in Fort Oglethorpe, to find as much local produce as it can, he said. Local produce isn't just at upper schools' salad bars, he said. Salads served in clamshell containers at all of its elementary schools use local produce when it's available.
Destiny King, a senior at Red Bank High School, said she'll eat from the salad bar every other day.
"It's probably way better than that," King said Friday, with a nod toward the hot food line. "It looks better, anyways."
Assistant Principal Patty Lane, who was monitoring the lunch room, said students' tastes change with the seasons.
"When it's spring time, and they're getting ready for prom, [girls] hit it really hard. They really do," she said. "It's kind of funny."
U.S. Department of Agriculture rules that went into effect in 2012 require students to leave the lunch line with at least one fruit or vegetable.
"[Students] must take a fruit or a vegetable now, and a lot of them grab apples," Hill said.
Mark Burnett is a general partner at Wooden's Apple House, which has a 120-acre orchard with 21 varieties of apples and also sells cider, jellies, pies and other items at its cafe and pie shop at 6351 New Harmony Road.
Burnett said that -- unlike Wooden's fresh apples -- some apples can spend a year in cold, low-oxygen storage before they show up on a supermarket's shelves.
"It's a beautiful apple," he said of the cold-storage variety. "But it really ruins the taste."
Meanwhile, Burnett said that when apple season starts, he'll have customers tell him, "Man, I waited for y'all to open, because I wanted a fresh apple."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.