Food and Nutrition Services began a 3-year partnership with Brigaid in April 2021. The purpose of the partnership is to increase the training of food service professionals at each DPS school in order to improve the quality, presentation, taste and menu items of school meals.  

Brigaid is a chef led organization dedicated to the mission of reimagining K-12 school food service.  Brigaid began their work in 2016 in New London, CT and eventually moved to support schools in New York City and the district of Richmond, VA. In 2020 DPS hired Brigaid to conduct an operational assessment of the Food Services department and that led to a 3-year contract from March 2021 through June 2024 to deploy Brigaid chefs at all DPS schools participating in the National School Lunch Program.

The foundation of the Brigaid work is to empower food service staff through extensive in-person training at the school level. Brigaid has hired twelve professional trained chefs to work in DPS schools. They will lead a training program that incorporates organizational and culinary skills to ensure greater consistency in scratch made meals, quality in menu item execution and consultation  on recipe and menu development. The goal of the partnership is to ensure that school meals consistently taste good, have high nutritional value and an appealing appearance when served.  When we meet this goal, we meet the Food Service mission to feed all DPS kids so all students are ready to learn.

The unique partnership between DPS and Brigaid is funded by generous grants from the LifeTime Foundation, the Rachael Ray Foundation, and the Denver Foundation.

The LifeTime Foundation bases their work with district partners in the following beliefs:

• We are committed to helping children grow up strong, smart and loved.

• We believe for children to reach their full potential they must have access to nourishing meals.

• We collaborate with our country’s school food professionals to keep highly processed food out of meals while increasing the amount of fresh and simply prepared foods.

The partnership with DPS and the LifeTime Foundation focuses on the opportunity to improve the quality of ingredients used in scratch-made products served to DPS students. DPS, the LifeTime Foundation, other partner school districts and food manufactures are working together to improve the overall quality, nutritional value, and safety of food provided to all students in every school. The LifeTime Foundation has developed an “Ingredient Guide for Better School Food Purchasing” that highlights unwanted ingredients to eliminate, and those to watch out for as new food products are developed and others are modified. DPS is using this tool as a guide when purchasing food products and ingredients beginning in the 2021-22 school year.